Panelkapcsolat (1982)

Directed by Béla Tarr
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Facets)

If you can imagine early Fassbinder filming Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage then that was my impression of this effort from Hungarian director Tarr. A couple celebrates their 9th anniversary by bickering, in private and public, with screaming kids in tow. Robi is the bored husband: tired of his job, tired of his tiny apartment, tired of his wife, tired of his kids. His wife is not much happier, when she complains to a friend that they never dance, Tarr follows it up with a long scene at a dance where, you guessed it he dances with someone else but not her. They get home and he is packing up a suitcase to leave, again. Shot in stifling close-ups and gritty black-and-white.