The two best known films of Niclos Jancso are situated during a war. "The red and the white" (1967) is situated during the Russian civil war and the background of "The round up" (1966) is an Hungarian uprise against the Habsburg empire.
I deliberately used the words "situated during a war" because both films are not war films in the strict sense of the word. "The round up" plays in an internment camp in which the guards try to find out the role the different prisoners have played in the uprising. We see no fighting but a lot of torture, often of a psychological nature. Another similarity with "The red and the white" is the role nudity and the accompanied humiliation plays in this torture.
Films are often categorised as either plot driven or character driven. The films of Jancso are neither. They are sometimes characterized by the interplay between landscape and characters. "The round up" is a perfect example. The internment camp is situated extremely remotely at the Hungarian puszta. In the internment camp the prisoners are sometimes obliged to walk in circles on the courtyard, a bag put over their heads. This gives a remarkable geometry from which the title of the film is derived.
The most striking aspect of the film however is it's continued historical relevance. The film is explicitly about the oppression of the Hungarian people by the Habsburg empire. Without any doubt it is implicitly also about the oppression of the Hungarian people by the Soviet Union from 1945 onwards. Think also about the films Sergei Eisenstein made about "Ivan the Terrible" (1944, 1958). Stalin loved this films until he realised that part two was also about himself.
So far the historical relevance seems to end in 1989. Recently however some Hungarians, at least the followers of Victor Orban, seem to consider the European Union as a new oppresser. Since the Brexit in 2016 there is renewed interest in the disintegration of the Habsburg empire as a possible (worst case) scenario for the European Union.
I deliberately used the words "situated during a war" because both films are not war films in the strict sense of the word. "The round up" plays in an internment camp in which the guards try to find out the role the different prisoners have played in the uprising. We see no fighting but a lot of torture, often of a psychological nature. Another similarity with "The red and the white" is the role nudity and the accompanied humiliation plays in this torture.
Films are often categorised as either plot driven or character driven. The films of Jancso are neither. They are sometimes characterized by the interplay between landscape and characters. "The round up" is a perfect example. The internment camp is situated extremely remotely at the Hungarian puszta. In the internment camp the prisoners are sometimes obliged to walk in circles on the courtyard, a bag put over their heads. This gives a remarkable geometry from which the title of the film is derived.
The most striking aspect of the film however is it's continued historical relevance. The film is explicitly about the oppression of the Hungarian people by the Habsburg empire. Without any doubt it is implicitly also about the oppression of the Hungarian people by the Soviet Union from 1945 onwards. Think also about the films Sergei Eisenstein made about "Ivan the Terrible" (1944, 1958). Stalin loved this films until he realised that part two was also about himself.
So far the historical relevance seems to end in 1989. Recently however some Hungarians, at least the followers of Victor Orban, seem to consider the European Union as a new oppresser. Since the Brexit in 2016 there is renewed interest in the disintegration of the Habsburg empire as a possible (worst case) scenario for the European Union.