Béla Tarr, the Hungarian arthouse director best known for his bleak, existential and challenging films, including Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies, has died at the age of 70. The Hungarian Filmmakers’ Association shared a statement on Tuesday announcing Tarr’s passing after a serious illness, but did not specify further details.

Tarr was born in communist-era Hungary in 1955 and made his filmmaking debut in 1979 with Family Nest, the first of nine feature films that would culminate in his 2011 film The Turin Horse. Damnation, released in 1988 at the Berlin International Film Festival, was his first film to draw global acclaim, and launched Tarr from a little-known director of social dramas to a fixture on the international film festival circuit.

Tarr’s reputation for films tinged with misery and hard-heartedness, distinguished by black-and-white cinematography and unusually long sequences, only grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s, particularly after his 1994 film Sátántangó. The epic drama, following a Hungarian village facing the fallout of communism, is best known for its length, clocking in at seven-and-a-half hours.

Based on the novel by Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature last year and frequently collaborated with Tarr, the film became a touchstone for the “slow cinema” movement, with Tarr joining the ranks of directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman and Theo Angelopoulos. Writer and critic Susan Sontag hailed Sátántangó as “devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours.”

Tarr’s next breakthrough came in 2000 with his film Werckmeister Harmonies, the first of three movies co-directed by his partner, the editor Ágnes Hranitzky. Another loose adaptation of a Krasznahorkai novel, the film depicts the strange arrival of a circus in a small town in Hungary. With only 39 shots making up the film’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime, Tarr’s penchant for long takes was on full display.

Like Sátántangó, it was a major success with both critics and the arthouse crowd. Both films popularized Tarr’s style and drew the admiration of independent directors such as Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant, the latter of which cited Tarr as a direct influence on his films: “They get so much closer to the real rhythms of life that it is like seeing the birth of a new cinema. He is one of the few genuinely visionary filmmakers.”

The actress Tilda Swinton is another admirer of Tarr’s, and starred in the filmmaker’s 2007 film The Man from London. At the premiere, Tarr announced that his next film would be his last. That 2011 film, The Turin Horse, was typically bleak but with an apocalyptic twist, following a man and his daughter as they face the end of the world. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

After the release of The Turin Horse, Tarr opened an international film program in 2013 called film.factory as part of the Sarajevo Film Academy. He led and taught in the school for four years, inviting various filmmakers and actors to teach workshops and mentor students, including Swinton, Van Sant, Jarmusch, Juliette Binoche and Gael García Bernal.

In the last years of his life, he worked on a number of artistic projects, including an exhibition at a film museum in Amsterdam. He remained politically outspoken throughout his life, condemning the rise of nationalism and criticizing the government of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.

California’s wet winter continued Sunday, with the heaviest rain occurring into the evening, and more precipitation forecast for Monday before tapering off on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

A flood advisory was in effect for most of Los Angeles County until 10 p.m.

Los Angeles and Ventura counties’ coastal and valley regions could receive roughly half an inch to an inch more rain, with mountain areas getting one to two additional inches Sunday, officials said. The next two days will be lighter, said Robbie Munroe, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Oxnard.

Rains in Southern California have broken records this season, with some areas approaching average rain totals for an entire season. As of Sunday morning, the region had seen nearly 14 inches of rain since Oct. 1, more than three times the average of 4 inches for this time of year. An average rain season, which goes from July 1 to June 30, is 14.25 inches, officials said.

“There’s the potential that we’ll already meet our average rainfall for the entire 12-month period by later today if we end up getting half an inch or more of rain,” Munroe added.

The wet weather prompted multiple road closures over the weekend, including a 3.6-mile stretch of Topanga Canyon Boulevard between Pacific Coast Highway and Grand View Drive as well as State Route 33 between Fairview Road and Lockwood Valley Road in the Los Padres National Forest. The California Department of Transportation also closed all lanes along State Route 2 from 3.3 miles east of Newcomb’s Ranch to State Route 138 in Angeles National Forest.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials say beachgoers should stay out of the water to avoid the higher bacteria levels brought on by rain.

After storms, especially near discharging storm drains, creeks and rivers, the water can be contaminated with E. coli, trash, chemicals and other public health hazards.

The advisory, which will be in effect until at least 4 p.m. Monday, could be extended if the rain continues.

In Ventura County on Sunday, the 101 Freeway was reopened after lanes were closed due to flooding Saturday. But there was at least one spinout as well as a vehicle stuck in mud on the highway Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The freeway was also closed Saturday in Santa Barbara County in both directions near Goleta due to debris flows but reopened Sunday, according to Caltrans.

Santa Barbara Airport reopened and all commercial flights and fixed-wing aircraft were cleared for normal operations Sunday morning. The airport had shut down and grounded all flights Saturday due to flooded runways.

In Orange County early Sunday afternoon, firefighters rescued a man clinging to a section of a tunnel in cold, fast-moving water in a storm channel at Bolsa Avenue and Goldenwest Street in Westminster, according to fire officials.

A swift-water rescue team deployed a helicopter, lowered inflated firehoses and positioned an aerial ladder to allow responders to secure the man and bring him to safety before transporting him to a hospital for evaluation.

Heavy rains continued to batter Southern California mountain areas. Wrightwood in San Bernardino County — slammed recently with mud and debris — was closed Sunday except to residents as heavy equipment was brought in to clear mud and debris from roadways, the news-gathering organization OnScene reported.

After canceling live racing on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day due to heavy showers, Santa Anita Park also called off events Saturday and Sunday.

After several atmospheric river systems have come through, familiar conditions are set to return to the region later this week.

“We’ll get a good break from the rain and it’ll let things dry out a little bit, and we may even be looking at Santa Ana conditions as we head into next weekend,” Munroe said. The weather will likely be “mostly sunny” and breezy in the valleys and mountains.