reacted favourably when the film appeared to end prematurely due to a technical fault; others greeted the actual conclusion with fervent applause and calls of bravo. Global sales rights to the film were bought by Fortissimo Films, and it was re-dubbed in French and English. The new version had its North American premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in September 2008. In the United Kingdom, distributor Artificial Eye released the film theatrically in December 2008, 18 months following its Cannes premiere. They later released a DVD box set of Tarr's films which collected The Man from London with Damnation (1988) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). In the United States the film was given a limited release in May 2009 by IFC Films, who later made it available through video-on-demand. Critical reception Critical reaction to The Man from London generally praised its formalist aesthetic and painstakingly composed scenes, while criticizing its slow pace and lack of a compelling plot. Most argued the film fell short of Tarr's previous efforts. Varietys Derek Elley rated the film on a par with his Damnation (1988) but as inferior to Sátántangó (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), remarking it was improbable that The Man From London would put an end to the polarization of Tarr's audiences into those who hail him as a director of "visionary genius" and those for whom he is a "crashing bore". Martin Tsai of The New York Sun allowed that Tarr "makes it easy for viewers to get lost in his beautifully bleak world and lose track of time" but complained that in comparison with its predecessors, the film's central theme of guilt seemed insubstantial and the film itself felt "slight and incomplete". The New York Times reviewer Nathan Lee described The Man from London as "bloated, formalist art", and an "outrageously stylized, conceptually demanding film" that dehumanizes and alienates its audience. Conversely, Jeff Reichert of Reverse Shot, a long-time Tarr enthusiast, commended the film for its technical dexterity and authoritative camera movement, comparing Tarr to Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien for his cinematic rigor. He did, however, consider the source material sub-par, and the musical score by Mihály Víg to be "whirring [and] grat[ing]". In The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt complimented the intricacy of the cinematography and the monochrome photography, but judged the film to be "tedious", "repetitive" and "nearly unwatchable". In a review of Cannes' offerings