The Man from London

The Man from London (2008)

A Londoni férfi

A switchman at a seaside railway witnesses a murder but does not report it after he finds a suitcase full of money at the scene of the crime.

Date of release
2008-09-24
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (114)
Runtime
2h 19m
Genres
Mystery, Crime, Drama
Director
Béla Tarr

Casting

Interesting facts

The Man from London is a 2007 Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky. It is an adaptation by Tarr and his collaborator-friend László Krasznahorkai of the 1934 novel L'Homme de Londres by prolific Belgian writer Georges Simenon. The film features an international ensemble cast including Czech actor Miroslav Krobot, Briton Tilda Swinton, and Hungarian actors János Derzsi and István Lénárt. The plot follows Maloin, a nondescript railway worker who recovers a briefcase containing a significant amount of money from the scene of a murder of which he is the only witness.

Production history

The development of the film was problematic, with threats to shut down the production, lack of financing, and ultimately a return to work. The project first faltered in February 2005, when the film's producer Humbert Balsan committed suicide. Tarr reported receiving word of his producer's death two days before shooting was scheduled to begin in Bastia, Corsica. Balsan's death led to significant financial difficulties for the production.

After securing additional financing from Eurimages and ARTE, Tarr used these and the Hungarian funds to undertake nine days of shooting on sets he had built at a cost of €2 million. The French funding was cross-financed for the shoot by T. T. Filmműhely.

Expressions of sympathy and solidarity from the European film community manifested in renewed assurances of continued support from the production's German partners, ARTE, and the French National Film Centre (whose support was conditional on the film having 51% of its dialogue in French).

While the production's lawyers worked to clarify its legal standing in the Summer of 2005, it emerged that Humbert Balsan's deeply indebted production company Ognon Pictures had pledged all rights to the production to Coficiné in exchange for loans. With production in legal stasis and faced with a lengthy court battle to recover the rights, the producers agreed to a settlement with Ognon's bankruptcy officer.

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