Autumn Almanac

Five people live in a flat in Budapest: an elderly owner, her son, her nurse, the nurse's lover and a teacher who rents a room. All of them are waiting for her money. Nobody goes out, nobody works and they spend the days setting traps for one another. The outside is never seen. The subject is not family but the expectation of money keeping everyone in the same room. All five want to leave and none of them can; the alliances change scene by scene and nobody trusts anybody. The form is Béla Tarr's turning point. It is his first film in colour, and the colour is not realist: rooms are washed in blue, red and green, with several colours inside one scene. The camera goes to unusual places too; one scene is shot entirely from beneath a glass floor, looking up at the actors. The production stands between his early social realism and the long-take manner that followed. The subject is still a cramped flat and money; the form has moved away from documentary towards the stage and the painting. Hédi Temessy plays the owner and Erika Bodnár the nurse. Who it is for: viewers following Tarr's development and anyone who likes enclosed drama. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events; the film is five people talking in a flat.