Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on May 15, 2007 at 07:42:56

a nest it is.
This is ultra-realism, Hungarian-style and it is so powerful it almost melts the screen.
Nine people are forced to share a tiny two room apartment. A man returns to live there, joining his wife and small daugher that have increasingly been verbally abused and badgered by the patriarch, the returning man's father. This incessantly complaining man stops at no insult, no demeaning comment to belittle and insult his daughter-in-law. Her only respite--- because her husband refuses to stand up for her-- comes at her factory job where she works as much overtime as possible.
Yes, it's very difficult to watch at times but, after the shock of it is over, one realizes it as being one of the most accurate portrayals of life and of the strength-- and limits-- of the human spirit.
This is very early Tarr and very, very different from his later, leisurely paced efforts.
Susan Sontag thought his later film, "Damnation," to be a pinnacle of film.
At any rate, Tarr is an original and, along with Bergman, Fassbinder, and several others, one of the unflinching commentators on the human condition.