The Red and the White

There are no heroes, no central characters. As soon as you start to recognize someone from an earlier scene, he gets killed. You almost never learn anyone's name. They are simply victims and victimizers, and their roles may switch at any time, without fanfare or celebration. It is even difficult at times to tell who is on what side. Also, the camerawork is stunning, recalling the fluid graceful movement of Tarkovsky and Kalatozishvili. Surreal, disorienting, and powerful stuff.

I get what it's trying to do, show the disorienting, confusing and pointless nature of war by not giving the audience an anchor or much context for what happens. It didn't work for me, and I think it's because the detachment and lack of emotion turns these characters into automatons, removing their humanity and making war seem inevitable. It does have great camerawork, though, and I may give it another shot in a few years.

A film that deconstructs the naive idea that one can distinguish between good and evil, winner and loser, in times of war. It unfolds like a disorienting nightmare. You're given no anchor, no central plot or character. You drift through it, lingering off in the distance and passively watching as nameless men and women are consumed by a seamless tide of destruction. Rarely have I seen a film, even a war film, with such an uncompromisingly dark and cynical view of human nature. Now, waltz.

Both conceptually and technically stunning, this is one of the bleakest war films I've ever seen. Both sides commit atrocities, often within the same shot. New characters are rarely named; they'll be dead soon, anyway. The camera winds along the banks of the Volga like death itself, following people until they die, then leeching onto surrounding survivors until they die as well. Everyone is linked in a seamless stream of brutality. War, fuck yeah.

Shit, what did I just see? The closest, most immediate comparisons: An impersonal Idi i Smotri directed by a taciturn Tarkovsky. Anyhow... Incredible.

criticker guys, are you idiot?

About halfway through the film, girls are forced into a waltz solely for the fleeting visual pleasure of men soon dead - a terrifying summary of Jancsó's film as a whole. Dizzying in its oscillation of winners and losers, soldiers and martyrs, and seas of shirtless men with no discernible cause for war, after a while one starts to get the idea that no one ever wins. The film is needed salt on an open wound.

A pervading sense of detachment lends a chilling air to this incomparably desolate feature. The depth of cruelty at hand leaves no presence for emotion and the end result is a hard, incompassionate marvel.

Becomes something much more than its basic subject and period - an indictment on war itself - on the complicity and base nature invoked in all involved. The waltz scene is one of the most unsettling scenes I have ever seen, among many others here. There is no clear reprieve to be found for anyone. No hope.

I really admire what Jansco set out to do in this one, and a lot of the filmmaking and camerawork is beautiful, but unfortunately for me, I found some of the choices made in trying to do what he's doing--having no clear narrative, no real central characters, etc, left me detached to a large degree and gave me nothing to really grab onto. Depending on your taste you might be blown away by this, though. It's not bad, just not really for me.

I was expecting more of a Thin Red Line type camera hovering over the destruction, but its a little more plot driven and less nihilistic than I'd expected (not that I'm a nihilist). I guess I was hoping for something more like Alan Clarke's Elephant

By presenting two sides barely distinguishable from one another and locked in an unspecified conflict, Jancsó makes a simple but powerful statement on the absurdity and futility of warfare. The elaborate long takes are stunningly shot and imbue the action with a manic authenticity, while the cool detachment from story and character strips the always-shifting subjects of any individuality or heroism, in turn rendering each death and sacrifice entirely inconsequential.

While it is not true that this movie does not differentiate the behaviour of the two sides, it is true that it deviates from conventional approaches by shifting from character to character as the camera moves from one situation to another, with a series of remarkably complex long shots that convey the rhythms, choreography and brutality of war. Does not reach the heights of IVAN'S CHILDHOOD, THE CRANES ARE FLYING or (later) COME AND SEE, but Jancsó's unique approach is still highly memorable.

The amazing cinematography and marvelous long tracking shots make this a lust for the eyes. The absences oft a clear protagonist really conveys the chaos and arbitrariness of war.

Jancso turns all slide rules to dust with this radical reimagining of the war film, removing all traces of nobility and heroism from violent combat by presenting it for what it is: senseless and brutal. His camera moves relentlessly up and across fields, and the effect is purposely disorienting as well as innovative. Accusations of empty formalism are misguided, if not flat out wrong, because he captures the chaos of the battlefield with complete clarity and startling geometric precision.

this film choked me

[MMWTM3K#05] It's an interesting film, but not really a great one. It tries to show how chaotic is war, but succeeds only partially. While some scenes excel at showing horrors of war being contrasted with short instances of a peaceful idyll, way too often it becomes just a "Taking Your Shirt Off And Standing In Lines In Various Combinations: The Movie".

Having difficulty differentiating between sides probably indicates a point intended by Jancsó, namely that neither side was black or white, but then it could also simply be due to me not caring about any of the shortlived extras... which this film is exclusively comprised of. One long, drawn out argument presented with the same evidence over and over again gets a bit tedious, especially since it increasingly became contrived. Watch: This Land Is Mine (2012) instead.

Formally impressive but impersonal, which i know is sort of the point, but still...

Thrilling to watch. The numbness of emotion makes this somewhat more effective.

17 Temmuz 2014, Bilgi Sinema & Buradaki mutlak mizansen arzusu bana fasitce geliyor. (Antonino ile cok ayri kafalarda bir arzu) - Icerik olarak humanist, bicem olarak ise fasist kabul edebilirim ve bu muthis bir celiski. Filmin en ilginc noktasi da buydu.

Çok da süslü olmayan etkileyici hikayesini yine -GERÇEKTEN- mükemmel bir görsellik ve üslupla anlatıyor Jancso. Şayet sinema sadece teknik beceriden ibaret bişey olsaydı, kendisinin gelmiş geçmiş en büyük birkaç yönetmenden biri olduğunu iddia edebilirdim. Magazinel bağlayayım: "Bela Tarr'dan önce Miklos Jancso vardı."

a largely uninteresting war reenactment of the skirmishes between communists and czarists. okay, i get the point that moving wordlessly between characters as they die before we get a chance to know them is somehow an indictment of war and human nature, but it just isn't particularly meaningful, and artistically it's far from unique. i was quite simply bored while watching. but it does have stunning photography, so there's that.

Thoroughly impressive.

The war movie with no heroes, in any sense of the word, just a long chain of realistically portrayed, haphazard atrocities, connected through provisional central characters none of whom survive for long. Senselessness itself is the protagonist. The film has a perfect rhythm, and it's as riveting as it is hard to watch. I am puzzled only by its dearth of expressions of anguish and panic and grief. There is little if any screaming, crying and pleading. It's as if everyone accepts their fate.

BOOM! Long take awesomeness coming right at ya.

The most beautifully shot terrible movie ever made. With characters constantly changing I didn't care about anyone in this movie. I eventually just say back and watched the beautiful shots. Because this movie is filled with them. Great movie if you want to learn how to film.

#833

Most "anti-war" films struggle to hint at what this film plainly lays bare. The brilliant cinematography is both captivating and deliberately alienating; this film makes few concessions to the viewer, and my relatively restrained score reflects the fact that it isn't very pleasant to re-watch -- yet it's definitely on my short list of "must-see" war films.

Dark, disturbing and gorgeous, The Red and the White moves along at a beautifully fluid pace, and character development is jettisoned in favor of mood and aesthetics.

Miklos Jansco's film of the 1919 struggle between the Red (Soviet-backed) forces and the White (partisan) forces removes the usual drama and narratives trappings of the war film to fashion something like an absurd field sport, with players constantly lining up and picking teams. The non-identification of characters emphasizes the dehumanizing aspect of war, and Jansco's long takes unearth the tilting moral axis that leaves no party unsullied.

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