''The Prefab People'' () is a 1982 Hungarian

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drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Béla Tarr Béla Tarr (born 21 July 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film '' Family Nest'' (1979), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordi ...

. Although the film was made in 1982, it was not shown in

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until July 4, 2011. The film earned special mention in the 1982

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

. The film has several run times (72 min., 84 min., or 102 min. depending on the version), and is shot in 35 mm.

Plot

A couple in a failing marriage recall what led up to their biggest dispute.

Reception

''The Prefab People'' received generally positive reviews from critics, and has been ranked with Tarr's best early works.

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reports a 100% approval rating from critics, based on six reviews, and an average rating of 7.5/10. Writing for ''

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'', Michael Atkinson called the film an "unrelenting, smell-the-sour-breath portrait of a blue-collar marriage dissolving under pressure from Communist-era poverty, masculine inadequacy, and restless depression."

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for '' The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has contributed to ...

of ''

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'' argued it was "the best of his early forays into Cassavetes-style social realism." In 2003, web-based film critic Jeremy Heilman called ''The Prefab People'' the best of arr'searly works because it achieves such a degree of intimacy that its lack of ostentatious filmmaking never impedes its ability to observe its characters."

References

External links

* * Hungarian black-and-white films 1982 films Films directed by Béla Tarr {{Hungary-film-stub