The Eastern European communist and post-communist experience through the films of Bela Tarr

This thesis argues that there is a film cycle within Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s second period films, which I have coined the ‘Communist Cycle’, that are vital portraits of communism and post-communism in Hungary, informed by Tarr’s generation’s experience during and after communism. The thesis undertakes several case studies of Tarr’s Communist Cycle in order to reveal his perception of communist and post-communist Hungary conjuring bleak imagery – deprived, gloomy characters and decaying environments plagued with perpetual rain and harsh wind. This parable of the socio-political mess that followed after the collapse of the communist regime is explored throughout Tarr’s Communist Cycle. This thesis has been structured in accordance to the progression of communism into postcommunism hence it does not discuss Tarr’s films in chronological order, instead beginning with a relentless portrait of the final years of communism in Damnation (1988) and ending with a completely deteriorated social structure in The Turin Horse (2011). Damnation portrays the apprehension of the imminent change of political administration sensed in the late 1980s. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) depicts the transition between communism to post-communism through a collective anxiety that leads to disastrous outcomes, fuelled by fear and uncertainty of this imminent change. Satantango (1994) represents a collapsed socio-political structure in postcommunist Hungary and the deprivation that followed. The Turin Horse, the final film in the cycle, concludes Tarr’s personal narrative about the post-communist experience and, is fittingly, his last feature film. This thesis contextualizes Tarr’s Communist Cycle within the framework of an Eastern European film discourse that examines the ambiguity of the post-communist milieu as communist perspectives and attitudes from the past persisted. The central arguments of this thesis draw on the ideas of Hungarian-Romanian film scholar Ágnes Pethő, among others, specifically her identification of a characteristic in Eastern European cinema: the “present presented as past”. This thesis is also informed by personal experience through the memories of my Romanian family members who lived through communism and post-communism, so the approach of this thesis combines the personal, the critical and the analytical.

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts to the Department of Creative Arts and English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.