The Prefab People (1982)

The Prefab People (Béla Tarr, 1982)
Hungarian Title: Panelkapcsolat

Béla Tarr's third feature The Prefab People is often considered the Hungarian's best out of his early documentary-like fiction films. The film is a concise and personal look on a dying marriage in the midst of a socialist country on the verge of impending commercialism. Tarr's palette consists of residential buildings, smoke belching factories, dance clubs, and of course, the harshly claustrophobic interiors of a middle class flat which houses the couple and their two young children.

A celebration (consisting of a musical band playing a joyous melody) preempts the film sarcastically. Right after the final notes of the joyous song ends, Tarr pits his audience immediately on the hopeless marriage by introducing the couple in a point of discordant intimacy. It's something you'd rather not see. The husband (Robert Koltai) suddenly storms inside the flat, grabs his things and tells the surprised wife (Judit Pogany) that he's leaving them for good. Sounds of weeping and wailing ensue after as the wife begs the husband to rethink his decision. Tarr abruptly ends the sequence, by showing something that seems a bit sweeter, the couple's ninth anniversary. We really don't know if the anniversary precedes the dramatic introductory sequence or if that was after the husband has finally returned to the begging wife. The celebration turns sour when the wife suddenly decides to use the anniversary as an avenue to nag on the husband's domestic inadequacy.

It's not really an engaging film. It's more depressing than revealing. The couple come and go ending every bit of something good with an opportunity to disagree. A vacation turns sour when the husband suddenly decides to visit a friend and becomes unaware that he has left his wife and children for about an hour and a half. When he shows up, he gets a verbal lashing from the nagging wife. The film is basically a repetition of scenes wherein the couple would lash out in disagreement. It's obvious that they are both in love with each other, but perhaps due to some societal or psychological reason, they always end up in conflict.

Depressing, repetitive, taxing and sometimes unwatchable due to its saddeningly intimate content, The Prefab People however showcases unmeasurable talent from the young director. His camera captures the emotional angst as it transforms from pleasant and normal relations to erupting and bitterly unbearable domestic drama. In one fascinatingly done sequence, Tarr begins by catching the couple enjoying an entertainment show which leads to a night of frenzied dancing. Tarr then lets time pass by, catching the husband in drunken ecstasy singing songs to pass time as the wife downs a glass of liquor, letting her tears out in the film's single most honest image. It is in that melancholic scene wherein Tarr lets alcohol dominate celluloid, catching the characters in their most sincere and their most quiet repression of pent-up emotions.

Family Nest (1979)

Family Nest (Béla Tarr, 1979)
Hungarian Title: Családi tüzfészek

Béla Tarr was only twenty two years old when he made Family Nest, a very mature look at the housing problem that pervades late seventies Budapest. Despite his young age, he was able to make a truthful and at times, heartbreaking commentary on how a supposed political problem has invaded the nucleus of Hungarian society, the family. His style is typical to Eastern European Cinema: a cinema verite style wherein he uses primarily non-actors and the visual appeal is almost non-existent, suggesting a documentary feel to the entire exercise. Tarr would later on develop a style that is completely his own, and would become a pillar in world cinema, his unique style becoming a source of inspiration for filmmakers like Gus Van Sant, Lav Diaz, and perhaps Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

The center of the aftershock of the Hungarian housing project is Laci, a newly released soldier and his wife Iren, who has lived in her father-in-law's pad for the entire time Laci was away. Iren and Laci's father don't exactly have the most perfect of relationships. The father insists that Iren raise her daughter the way he wants him to, and dislikes the fact that Iren would bring home some of her friends from work. Later in the film, the father would poison Laci's mind by saying that Iren is cheating since she's been out for periods of time at night, and that she's not exactly contributing enough money to the household.

It's an almost impossible dream for the couple to get a flat of their own. After all, a flat of their own will keep them away from the father's nonstop nagging, or Laci's brother's irresponsibility. However, getting a flat would require them to fall in line, and face the heartlessness of the government's bureaucracy. Tarr would spend some time showing how this works. Outside, his camera would catch other women telling their plights on the housing problem. A woman was forced to squat in a vacant flat, to miserable results. Inside the interview room, Iren would plead and beg the office worker to grant her the flat she wants or else, her marriage would suffer. But the office worker is merely a low ranking bureaucrat and he is in no position to hear the plight, and suffers through Iren's reasoning and tears. It's a double-edged sword Tarr is playing here, we see the plight of the house-needy residents, and also the virtually useless office workers forced to hear out the complaints and the destroyed lives of those in the mercy of an impersonal society.

It's an amazing debut feature from a very young director. Tarr dissects his society with an experience that would've suited a far more older analyst. The claustrophobic feel of the father's crowded flat, the banter upon banter heard evertime there's a family dinner, the alcohol consumed to temporarily relieve the tension at home, Tarr sees it as truthfully as any filmmaker could and his camera shoots it with any cinematic falsity distilled from the scenario. It's really an amazing feat which Tarr would eventually top in his later features.