MovieChat Forums > Werckmeister harmóniák (2001) Discussion > An interpretation (spoilers)

An interpretation (spoilers)

posted 14 years ago by rich-106
3 replies | jump to latest

Spoilers
There is a natural order to the universe that Janos describes in the opening description of the solar system. Sometimes the natural order doesn't seem to be the best for humans such as when an eclipse occurs that deprives us of light. Humans get scared by this but if we wait it out, we discover that it is only momentary and the natural order is the best after all. If we had tried to somehow tamper with the natural order of the solar system to avoid eclipse we could make it worse. The same principle applies to the musical scale. Werckmeister invented the current unnatural musical scale since the natural ratio of the sound frequencies didn't seem to tune an organ properly. The professor in the movie believes that it produces awful music. The third system in the movie is the social-political system of the country that also has a natural order that currently seems not to work. There are shortages of coal and fuel and work and and phones are not working for a long time. The common men in the area are getting very agitated with the seeming failure of the system especially now in the cold winter. The Prince is fomenting anarchy by saying that the current "whole is nothing", "nothing counts" . The angry men gather in towns led by the Prince and take their anger out on the stores and shops and hospitals and post offices. In her own way, the professors wife also feels the natural social order is not right mainly because she has lost her high role as wife and town leader. She sees the discontent as a way of re-gaining her stature. Her plan is to have the violent mob destroy the current town government, cause chaos, and then align with the police and the military to form a new government and a new order where she is the leader. Her plan seems to succeed but causes disaster for the town. The mob destroys the hospital but leaves a fragile naked old man alone since possibly the men know that his condition is inevitable for all of humankind and can't be "wrong". Innocent Janos is caught up in the middle of this plot and eventually the new social order shocks and ruins his inner stability, and causes him a nervous breakdown. At the end the whale represents how far from the natural order of life things have gotten, that now a whale sits in the middle of a town in Hungary.
hope this helps

[–] rooprect 14 years ago

Your post is along the lines of an interesting discussion we had here about natural order vs. man-made order:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249241/board/thread/62068427

I agree that the central theme is about the pitfalls of man-made order: totalitarianism, ritual, even-tempered musical scales. However, I don't come to the same conclusion you said: "if we wait it out, we discover that it is only momentary and the natural order is the best after all."

Maybe as individuals we discover it, but society as a whole never learns and is doomed to repeat the same madness every time. Only through its own ruin will society return to its beginnings, and even then it will repeat the same cycle.

I say this because the townsfolk never show that they learned from their mistake. Yes, the riot ended, but there was no recompense, no remorse, no apologies. People just turned around and went home, probably to wake up the next morning no different than they were the morning before, just exhausted.

The Werckmeister scale is the perfect analogy. As I pointed out in the other thread linked above, the Werckmeister scale is here to stay. All musicians, all composers & all sound engineers realize that we are using a flawed tuning system, but they accept it. It's like having a car; we all know that it's healthier (for us, for the planet) if we walk, but we all drive nonetheless. The only thing that will ever change that is a total collapse of technology that forces us to walk, and even that wouldn't presuppose that we've gotten any wiser. We would just invent new cars and do it all over again.

In that sense, the theme mirrors a somewhat Buddhist philosophy. We are all consigned to a seemingly endless cycle of suffering. There is no salvation en masse for the human race. But instead, one by one, certain individuals who reach enlightenment can free themselves from the shackles of physical reality. I believe Janos' catatonic state at the end is a metaphor for him escaping the horror of reality. He has reached 'nirvana' which literally tranlates as: 'lack of wants'. Isn't a catatonic state basically that?

At the end the whale represents how far from the natural order of life things have gotten, that now a whale sits in the middle of a town in Hungary.

Not to mention, in burning ruins! One of the most appropriate images I've ever seen at the end of a movie.

[–] tzuriel27 14 years ago

As a counterpoint to what you're saying, because I disagree with you lol, you should read my reply to this post:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249241/board/thread/175114033

As of right now, it's the only one there. I don't want to repeat what I've already said. I think you're conception of the pitfalls of man-made order is true, but I don't think that's because there's a natural order that's being violated, but because there is no natural order and nature resists such attempts to impose one upon it. Anyway, I'd love to go into further discussion with you both, if you'd care to reply either here or there. This is a deeply fascinating film that I'd love to spend more time thinking about.

[–] tzuriel27 14 years ago

lol I should pay more attention to names, since you're the guy who started the other post. Oh well...