The Prefab People
Bela Tarr's The Prefab People is a masterful exploration of the bleak realities and social decay in Hungary during the communist era.
Our week 1 recommendation is Tarr’s 1982 film The Prefab People. It very well announces his arrival to the world of international cinema. This is when Tarr has good control of “what” he wants to express even though the “how” changes with time. Tarr adopts a primitive approach to document the lives of a young couple, their deteriorating relationship and the suburban monotony that social and political climate tends to bring. While the broader philosophical themes he would pick up later on are not yet present, one could always get a hint of them on the fringes of the couple’s existence here.
The Prefab People’s social realism inclination could be seen merely as conventional but it nevertheless remains effective in its harsh and honest form.
