The Red and the White(Csillagosok, katonák)

What intended to be a commemorative film of the October Bolshevik revolution was derailed by Jancsó’s critical eye on history. Focusing not on triumph but on Hungarian soldiers in the Russian civil war that followed, Jancsó orchestrates his camera to classify the back-andforth battles between Red troops and the White guards as an endless cycle of gain and loss. Under a wide screen and wildly aestheticised lens, his characters are merely immaterial figures vulnerable in the face of death. Jancsó's virtuosic camera choreography is equally extolled in the films of his wife Mészáros, who replaces his flamboyance with subtle nuance.

3/2 (Sat): Film talk with Long Tin