The Miklós Jancsó Film Collection
Screenwriter and director Miklós Jancsó was the creator of a unique film language centered around his mastery of the tracking shot. The first internationally recognized representative of modern Hungarian filmmaking, his extraordinary works examined oppressive authority and the mechanics of power. Kino Lorber is proud to present six of his classic features restored from their original camera negatives by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive.
The Round-Up
Miklós Jancsó’s most renowned work depicts a prison camp in the aftermath of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. After the Hapsburg monarchy succeeds in suppressing Lajos Kossuth's nationalist uprising, the army sets about arresting suspected guerillas, who are subject to torture and other mental trickery in an effort to extract information about highwayman Sándor Rózsa’s band of outlaws, still waging armed struggle against the Hapsburgs on the outside. Jancsó’s camera stays in constant, hypnotic motion, taking in the developing dynamics and antagonisms between the prisoners and their captors, meditating upon and exalting its characters’ resistance and perseverance in the face of brutal, authoritarian repression. A true classic of world cinema.
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The Red and the White
A haunting, powerful film about the absurdity and evil of war. Set in Central Russia during the Civil War of 1918, THE RED AND THE WHITE details the murderous entanglements between Russia's Red soldiers and the counter-revolutionary Whites in the hills along the Volga. The epic conflict moves with skillful speed from a deserted monastery to a riverbank hospital to a final, unforgettable hillside massacre. Restored in 4K from its original 35mm camera negative by National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive.
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The Confrontation
Paralleling the dramatic student protests and riots that were exploding across the world in the 1960s at the time the film was made, The Confrontation is a story of protest and rebellion. Jancsó’s first color film is a virtuoso display by a director at the peak of his powers. The film eloquently explores the complex issues and inherent problems of revolutionary democracy, and was set to compete in the famously cancelled Cannes 1968.
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Winter Wind
In the mid-1930s a group of Croatian anarchists led by the grim revolutionary ascetic Marko Lazar escape a bungled ambush in Yugoslavia crossing the dense forests at that country's Northern border in an effort to seek refuge in Hungary. WINTER WIND consists largely of twelve fluid long takes, some as long as ten minutes, and each a completely mapped-out sequence. Jancsó’s interest is more geometric than geopolitical, eschewing the big picture historic story for micro-social behavior. In a series of sweeping motions, effectively communicating the abstract conflict between the idealist anarchists and reality.
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Red Psalm
Winner of the best director prize at Cannes in 1972, and widely considered to be the greatest Hungarian film of the 60s and 70s. Set on the Hungarian plains of the 1890s. When a group of farm workers go on a strike, demanding basic rights from a landowner, they are met with soldiers on horseback, facing harsh reprisals and the reality of revolt, oppression, morality and violence.
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Electra, My Love
A richly inventive adaptation of the two-thousand-year-old Greek myth. This searing exposé of oppression and the abuse of power resonates inescapably in twentieth century Hungary, reflecting attitudes towards tyranny and dictatorship from the modern man’s perspective. Jancsó makes use of the play's framework to make charges against the then Russian rulership that continues to resonate today.
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