I had not given much thought before to how weird it is to execute a process whereby football matches played all over the world would dictate the films that I watch. I always felt a bit conflicted about how to deal with countries that existed on the fringe of being good enough to qualify for the World Cup. One approach was to just be patient and see how they do in the qualifying rounds before making any firm decisions. The biggest advantage to this strategy is that it can save a lot of time and unnecessary hassle. For instance, I actually had a selection in mind for Ireland, even though I hadn’t done much research into how I would go about accessing the film. However after Ireland lost an early qualifying match to Luxembourg, I was able to just … casually take this film off my to-do list and not worry about it. Someday I may watch that film, but in the lead up to the publication of these critiques, I didn’t want to waste time on countries that obviously wouldn’t make it.
However, employing this strategy for all such countries is not something that I wanted to do, since I had an irrational fear that this might horribly backfire on me. I didn’t want to have to scramble to do a bunch of films near the end of the project, especially for countries where it might not be easy to find a film. Sometimes a little foresight is preferred. Thus I didn’t write this critique because I felt that Hungary would necessarily make it to the World Cup. I wrote this critique because I was able to get my hands on a qualified film rather easily and thought, ‘I might as well just in case’.
I was able to rent a copy from Facets who are the only known distributors for the film in the US. While you can always rent a DVD copy straight from Facets themselves, copies are also available to purchase at Amazon and to borrow at libraries. Although libraries are not a great option in this case. According to worldcat.org there were only 16 copies of the Facets release being held worldwide. Only 10 of these were in the US, with just one being held in Illinois. Given the additional dearth of streaming options, let’s just say that Facets was my only real option here.
I was a bit surprised with how this film started. The first images that I saw were those of a 10-piece brass band performing in front of curious onlookers who gazed at them from the windows of their apartment residences. The sequence offered a certain energy and pizzazz that had me feeling a bit optimistic about what I was about to watch. And yet the longer the film progressed the more it converged into the trademark elements of director Béla Tarr’s style. As with other Tarr films the rhythm of the exposition was deliberately meticulous with a pace that was a bit plodding. I think Tarr’s a director for whom no shot length is ever too long and the cinematic shots here had the tendency to linger on the screen to near excruciating lengths. Although Tarr’s stylistic touches weren’t taken to the absurd extremes that they were in his epic masterpiece Sátántangó. In contrast to that film Panelkapcsolat was far more restrained in its ambitions, but yet was livelier and more approachable for those looking for an introduction into Tarr’s work.
Despite what appeared to be a low-budget effort, the cinematography was excellent. If there was one thing that I liked about the duration of the shot lengths, it was the apparent desire to absorb the viewer into the world of its characters. When you combine this element with the graceful camera pans, the lack of any soundtrack and its extremely tight, intimate framing, the film offered a level of detail and nuance to the exposition that made me feel as if I was there among the characters. In films like this I think there is a rather subtle objective to diminish the conceptual detachment that exists between a film and its viewer.
The black and white imagery was also well suited to the film’s stark, and often bleak tone. The film achieved a verisimilitude with its raw, low-budget ambiance that to me was reminiscent of Cassavettes’ early work. At times Panelkapcsolat could almost be mistaken for a documentary, given the appearance of what one might consider to be poorly staged sequences. For instance during the dance sequence I thought it was odd, albeit thematic rich, to see glimpses of Feleség through the crowd of party goers. It was an interesting shot where the camera didn’t prioritize the importance of capturing the character over the ability to capture the overall atmosphere of the scene. Despite moments like these, the framing was still good considering the use of long, continuous takes that sometimes had to follow the movement of the performers. I also thought there was a good balance between it’s obvious predilection towards intimacy with its more broader perspectives whenever a scene called for the latter.
Ultimately though I have to ponder how much of an effect Tarr’s more intimate approach has on the acting in his films. As a performer, there has to be some acknowledgment that even the slightest of movements or touches are important and have to be performed with conviction. For instance when Róbert Koltai gave a slight eye roll during the dinner scene in their kitchen, it spoke volumes about the relationship between the two characters, more so than any piece of dialogue might convey. And in a Béla Tarr film such detail is going to be captured. If Tarr envisions a face as the canvas on which to explore the human condition, the actors are the ones who have to paint it, and here both leads do excellent work in this regard. There was great attention to detail in their body language and in their facial expressions that made the performances so complex and yet so undeniably human. Even the awkward and uncomfortable silence between the two leads at the end of the film felt perfectly performed.
Beyond this Judit Pogány was quite remarkable given how raw and emotionally wrought her fits of hysteria were portrayed. At times Pogány’s character seemed on the brink of a complete mental breakdown, and given the frank and unfiltered manner in which this film was shot this aspect of Pogány’s performance was noticeably unnerving but yet compelling. Pogány also did great work in her more modest, subdued moments. The emotion that she showed in her facial expressions while at the dance party were just as expressive if not demonstrative as the rest of her performance. During one particular shot she did a wonderful job of conveying her character’s sense of regret and hopelessness. While many may perceive her character as a selfish, irrationally stubborn women, such moments garnered real sympathy for the character, and Pogány deserved a lot of credit for this.
Róbert Koltai offered a stark contrast to Pogány’s character with a far more stoic and seemingly dispassionate performance. Koltai’s character was glum and practically meek to the point where he seemed to exist within a perpetual fog of apathy and submissiveness. He presented his character as someone who had become weary and defeated by life’s burdens. Although there were times were he managed to give Robi some modest personality especially during the drunk singing sequence. It was a good performance that didn’t quite stand out the way that Pogány’s did due to how austere the character was played.
Both leads though effectively established the film’s primary conflict which was a war of wills between a wife who was somewhat unhinged in her paranoia and a husband who yearned for the space to pursue his personal and professional ambitions. The film portrayed such a strained and broken marriage that it will made you wonder how the two ever got together in the first place. The depths of this dysfunction was none more apparent than it was during what may have been the most comically loveless sex scene ever committed to celluloid. This was a relationship that had far outlasted its romantic impulses and was left to exist by the mere force of inertia. Beyond the obvious marital strife though was a deeper conflict between the devotion to one’s family life and one’s professional and materialistic ambitions. The film ever so subtly explored the arguments for what a society should value more in a thoughtful, yet impartial manner that didn’t shy away from the spiritual emptiness that could be found within both.
While the film had no real concrete narrative or any sense of forward progression in how the scenes were presented, I still thought it was interesting that the film both started and ended with what appeared to be the exact same argument. In this sequence we see Feleség desperately attempt to stop Robi from leaving their apartment with a suitcase in his hand. The film did not provide any information to determine if either of these scenes represented a flashback or if these were two separate instances of a cyclical, reoccurring threat that never dissipates. Either way it allowed the film to construct a surprise twist that seemed too ridiculous to believe, that being a shot of Robi walking into frame behind his wife at an appliance store. Instead of a proper story, Panelkapcsolat offered instead a strange and fascinating character study of a woman who could never quite let go and a man who could never quite get away.