Bela Tarr began his career making gritty social dramas which centred on the lives of working class Hungarians. Whilst his later films are slow, metaphysical and immaculately composed, Tarr's early films were shot entirely with hand held cameras, and strove for a kind of "kitchen sink" realism very much akin to the British and French New Wave.
A little over an hour long, "The Prefab People" is one of Tarr's shortest films. Reminiscent of Cassavettes, the film focuses on a young couple who struggle to make ends meet, the husband working at a local power plant whilst his wife stays home, dutifully tending to their two kids. Usually these Hungarian films take aim at socialism, trade unions and the post-Soviet government, blaming the collective unhappiness of the middle class on various institutional factors, but Tarr sidesteps these issues entirely. Humans are innately alienated and unhappiness, Tarr says, is the condition of modern consciousness.
And so Tarr immediately zeroes in on the existential problems of these two characters. The husband struggles to find meaning in his job, believing himself to be "just a button pusher" the world "going on even if he's not there". Similarly, the wife moans about having to constantly supervise the kids, having no money and never spending quality time with her husband. But what is quality time? What is money? What is there of substance outside the 4 walls of their home?
Elsewhere Tarr takes aim at materialism and leisure. He emphasises the banality of human conversation, human acquisition, human pleasure and pokes fun at the way man clings desperately to the class ladder, believing that just one more appliance, just one more object, will bring him happiness. Observe how late in the film the characters discuss whether or not they can afford a car. They can't. And so they buy the next best thing: a washing machine. Maybe next year they'll get the car. Surely then they'll be happy.
It's not a question of illuminating why post-revolution Hungary is unhappy or highlighting what social and psychological factors contribute to this unhappiness (though the film deftly does just that), but in exposing the inherent futility of this type of existence. It will always be unfulfilling, not because the rules of the game are unfair, but because the game itself is unwinnable; radically change your values, alter your perceptions.
The way the couple cope with their problems is illuminating. The husband buries himself in alcohol and tries to stay away from home as much as possible, goofing off with his friends and hiding from his kids. The wife, in contrast, turns to sex and a kind of needy dependency. She believes that if her husband "pays more attention to her" their problems will be solved. Today, coping mechanisms take the form of electronic distractions, food, fads, films, drugs and TV, but Tarr's point is the same.
The film was praised in its day for being remarkably perceptive, highlighting the problems of life in 1980s Hungary, but Tarr's pessimism is broader. His is a cinema of hopelessness, his camera perhaps not empathising with the couple, but rather nauseated by the universe in which they live.
8.5/10 – Worth one viewing.
A little over an hour long, "The Prefab People" is one of Tarr's shortest films. Reminiscent of Cassavettes, the film focuses on a young couple who struggle to make ends meet, the husband working at a local power plant whilst his wife stays home, dutifully tending to their two kids. Usually these Hungarian films take aim at socialism, trade unions and the post-Soviet government, blaming the collective unhappiness of the middle class on various institutional factors, but Tarr sidesteps these issues entirely. Humans are innately alienated and unhappiness, Tarr says, is the condition of modern consciousness.
And so Tarr immediately zeroes in on the existential problems of these two characters. The husband struggles to find meaning in his job, believing himself to be "just a button pusher" the world "going on even if he's not there". Similarly, the wife moans about having to constantly supervise the kids, having no money and never spending quality time with her husband. But what is quality time? What is money? What is there of substance outside the 4 walls of their home?
Elsewhere Tarr takes aim at materialism and leisure. He emphasises the banality of human conversation, human acquisition, human pleasure and pokes fun at the way man clings desperately to the class ladder, believing that just one more appliance, just one more object, will bring him happiness. Observe how late in the film the characters discuss whether or not they can afford a car. They can't. And so they buy the next best thing: a washing machine. Maybe next year they'll get the car. Surely then they'll be happy.
It's not a question of illuminating why post-revolution Hungary is unhappy or highlighting what social and psychological factors contribute to this unhappiness (though the film deftly does just that), but in exposing the inherent futility of this type of existence. It will always be unfulfilling, not because the rules of the game are unfair, but because the game itself is unwinnable; radically change your values, alter your perceptions.
The way the couple cope with their problems is illuminating. The husband buries himself in alcohol and tries to stay away from home as much as possible, goofing off with his friends and hiding from his kids. The wife, in contrast, turns to sex and a kind of needy dependency. She believes that if her husband "pays more attention to her" their problems will be solved. Today, coping mechanisms take the form of electronic distractions, food, fads, films, drugs and TV, but Tarr's point is the same.
The film was praised in its day for being remarkably perceptive, highlighting the problems of life in 1980s Hungary, but Tarr's pessimism is broader. His is a cinema of hopelessness, his camera perhaps not empathising with the couple, but rather nauseated by the universe in which they live.
8.5/10 – Worth one viewing.