The Nobel prize in literature for 2025 has been awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai. The academy cited the 71-year-old’s “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” Béla Tarr’s Damnation is the first of five internationally acclaimed films written in collaboration with Krasznahorkai (including the legendary Sátántangó, based on the author’s first novel). Damnation chronicles the doomed affair between Bar Titanik regular Karrer (Sátántangó’s Miklós B. Székely) and the cruel cabaret singer he pines for while scheming to displace her brutish husband. This poignant allegory about communism solidified Tarr’s unique aesthetic, Damnation is photographed (by Gábor Medvigy) in an exquisitely black & white palette underscored by the mesmerizing long takes that would come to be Tarr’s trademark