Almanac of Fall (1985) review

They fight and fight, fight and fight and fight, fight-fight-fight, fight-fight-fight, the Hungarian Misery Show! Tarr (and co-author Ágnes Hranitzky) borrow from Sartre's No Exit to create a grim, banal picture about various people in an apartment complex who do nothing but slap each other, wrestle and scream - hell may be other people, but hell is also cinema without a pulse, a creative idea or a reason to exist. This stays down so far in the muck that the muck itself is fetishized, and that's something I simply cannot stand for - even if a movie is to show you the horrors of living, there should be a sign of passion either behind or in front of the camera. Tarr is merely frowning in a mirror.