In a remote town over which the dread of coming apocalypse hovers, a traveling circus appears. Its main attraction is a stuffed whale carcass accompanied by a Prince who foments the already incendiary stirrings of civil unrest. Among the most mysterious villagers is postman Valuska, who organizes patrons in a bar into a demonstration of the orderly rotations of the planets and later witnesses a violent mob’s attack on a dilapidated hospital. Although dark and devastating, the film may also offer a kind of hope: in its “sensuous black and whites” and the “stately, calculated movements” of its camerawork Werkmeister Harmonies suggests “that intelligence and balance are not completely absent from this world” (Fred Camper).