MUBI

Béla Tarr was still in his early years as a director when he conceived Almanac of Fall. This familly drama shows him starting to come into his own. The long takes, the moving camera, the long stretches of existential dialogues are all here. It would not be fair to compare this movie to his future masterpieces. On its own, Almanac of Fall stands as a powerfull look into a broken familly where power plays become more important than trust and basic appreciation of the other. Every charachter has an hidden agenda, a ploy left in his sleeves. It thus comes as no surprise when in the second half of the movie, the maid, after being raped, comes back to her assailant.
The story is thus told with long stretches of dialogue between various charachters broken up with more silent sequences either showing violence or beauty’s lost. Tarr uses every inch of the appartement inhis directing. One early such sequence showcases Tarr’s mastery of space and movement. We see the mother arguing with her son. Tarr places his camera at the distance moving it in order to hide or show the charachters trough the doors and pillars. Light also plays an important role in the movie. It is not rare to have one half of a conversation bathed in blue light and the other in red light, An other sequence also showcases Tarr’s mastery of light. The mother slowly closes all of the lights in the house. A sequence like this would perhaps feel out of place in an other movie, but Tarr never forgets what atmosphere he wants to convey. We never leave the appartement, we"re stuck loke the charachters. Some want to leave, some stay, most want to die.
As it stands, Almanac of Fall is a very good movie, albeit not a great one, showing a young Béla Tarr coming into its own as a director.