''Almanac of Fall'' ( hu, Öszi almanach) is a 1984 Hungarian film directed by

Béla Tarr Béla Tarr (born 21 July 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film ''Family Nest'' (1977), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordin ...

. The

Curzon Artificial Eye Curzon Film (), formerly known as Artificial Eye or Curzon Artificial Eye, is a British film distributor, specialising in independent, foreign-language and art house films for cinema and home entertainment. History Artificial Eye was founded i ...

edition of this film available in the UK is called "Autumn Almanac."
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Plot

In a grim, claustrophobic apartment owned by a rich elderly woman, the inhabitants desperately try to relate to each other as they go about their bleak lives revealing their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities. They include besides her, her son, her nurse, her nurse's discontented lover, and a new lodger.

Reception

''Almanac of Fall'' continues to receive positive reviews from critics, mainly for its cinematography.

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports 100% approval among six critics, with an average rating of 8.1/10. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the ''Chicago Reader'' lauded the film's "elaborately choreographed mise en scene" and "highly unorthodox angles," while a review in ''Strictly Film School'' argues, "Tarr ..uses highly stylized, artificially colored lighting, rigorous (and deliberate) formalism, minimalist setting, and protracted dialogue to create an atmospherically charged and disquieting environment." ''Almanac of Fall'' has since come to be regarded as a decisive moment in Tarr's filmography, in which he abandoned the documentary-like

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

of his early work and adopted a formal style of cinematography. "This is the turning point for Béla Tarr, leaving social realism behind to step into the existential abyss," wrote Jeremiah Kipp reviewing the film for ''Slant'' magazine. Jeremy Heilman of ''Movie Martyr'' called it "Tarr's first feature that could be described as the work of a formalist" and noted retrospectively that the film "offers a first sign of the hint of supernatural control that would continue to crop up in each of Tarr's subsequent features."

Cast

* Hédi Temessy as Hédi *

Erika Bodnár Erika Bodnár (born 17 March 1948) is a Hungarian actress. She appeared in more than fifty films since 1966. Selected filmography References External links * 1948 births Living people Hungarian film actresses {{Hungary-actor ...

as Anna *Miklós B. Székely as Miklós *Pál Hetényi as Tibor *

János Derzsi János Derzsi (born 20 April 1954 in Nyírábrány Nyírábrány is a large village in Hajdú-Bihar county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. Geography It covers an area of and has a population Population typically ...

as János, Hédi fia

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Almanac of Fall 1985 drama films 1985 films Films directed by Béla Tarr Hungarian drama films 1980s Hungarian-language films