The Red and the White

NEW 35mm PRINT!  │ Miklós Jancsó, coming off the breakthrough success of The Round-Up, was commissioned by the Soviets to make a film commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. A co-production between Hungary and the USSR, The Red and White (the original title translates as “Stars, Soldiers") is set during the Civil War that followed the Revolution, and concerns a group of Hungarian volunteers fighting for the Bolshevik side against White Russian forces. An epic back-and-forth struggle unfolds on a vast, expansive plain; each side commits atrocities as it gains the upper hand. The film showcases Jancsó’s gift for panoramic pageantry, intricate camera movement, and geometric abstraction, and his interest in the rituals of power, the mechanics of dominance and submission. Neither the extreme formalism nor the anti-heroic content could have thrilled the Soviets, who first re-edited the film and then banned it. (It was released in Hungary and the West.) "Great plastic beauty and a poisonous lyricism permeate this ballet of violence...This is a fully realized paraphrase of the human condition:" (Amos Vogel). "An indelibly powerful vision...It reveals in the most exemplary way all the virtues, all the creative touches, which raised Jancsó to world fame" (István Nemeskürty). B&W, 35mm, in Hungarian with English subtitles. 90 mins.