Now I know what Sontag was on about. I can't think of a better work of art that expresses what the dissolution of communism in Eastern Europe actually meant than this one. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Bela Tarr at senses of cinema:

FD & MLC: Do you use storyboards?

BT: No. Storyboards are stupid, stupid things... the story's only a part of the movie because the other things, time, rhythm, noises and...

FD & MLC: Music?

BT: Music, of course. And we are just trying to find something like a complex or total movie which isn't only the story...

FD & MLC: Thematically, your films' depiction of a world on the brink of catastrophe seems to link up with a lot of other films made lately, Pola X for example.

BT: I'm sorry, in the past four years I haven't seen anything.

FD & MLC: Yes, I know.

BT: I just wanted to tell you I know nothing.