When everything is alright with the completed print, then we can say that the film has been completed, Tarr told the Hungarian News Agency.
Tarr said that the film's invitation to participate at this year's Cannes Film Festival gave production a new impetus. The film is the first film in 19 years to compete at the festival.
"If we had not received the invitation (to Cannes), we would have leisurely finished the film at our own pace," he said, adding that the production crew had completed in just two months what would have otherwise taken four months to complete.
The Man From London was originally slated to compete at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, but shooting came to a halt in March 2005, after the suicide of its French producer Humbert Balsan, whose production company Ognon was collapsing under debt. The states of Hungary and France intervened, allowing shooting to continue under producer Paul Saadoun's company 13 Production, backed with financing from Coficiné Bank. Saadoun also produced Tarr's previous film Werckmeister Harmonies.
The film is a rendering of Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon's novel The Man From London. The screenplay was written by Tarr and his long-time collaborator László Krasznahorkai, one of Hungary's greatest living authors.
Georges Simenon's son John Simenon has called the film a "brilliant exercise in style which is at once harsh and difficult," adding that the film "deeply touched" him.
Like Tarr's earlier films, The Man From London is filmed in black and white. It stars the Czech actor Miroslav Krobot and the UK's Tilda Swinton. The film's cinematographer is Fred Kelemen, and music for the film is composed by Tarr's long-time collaborator Mihály Vígh.
This year's Cannes Film Festival will take place between May 16 and 27.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
