The Red and the White (movie review)

The Red and the White (drama) (1967) (1 hr 30 mins)

Okay, the subject matter of this film may not seem immediately attractive. It is a Russo-Hungarian black and white film portraying skirmishes between the Civil War between the Bolsheviks (the Reds) and the Czarists (the Whites) in the hills around the River Volga in 1919. The action is hard to follow, there are no main characters (most of the people we encounter end up getting shot), no real plot and no conclusion. And yet The Red and the White is widely regarded as a masterpiece. And rightly so.

Hungarian director Miklos Jansco made several films exploring the power relationships that exist in times of war. This film was commissioned by Russia to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Jansco chose to set the film two years after the Revolution and to convey the senseless brutality of the war. Clearly this was not what the Russian authorities were looking for:  the film was banned in the Soviet Union.

The film is episodic in structure, giving you seemingly random glimpses of the war. Jansco uses long takes and a moving camera in interesting ways to create scenes that are simple and visually beautiful in their composition. In one scene we see a group of soldiers charge down a hillside towards a line of enemy troops. As they approach, they are all shot down. The camera remains at the top of the hill, detached, conveying the futility of such massacres.

Another haunting scene comes when a White officer kills a Hungarian and forces a milkmaid to strip. When his superiors arrive, they reprimand him, then shoot him. In another scene, White officers force nurses to dress up and then take them into the woods. You fear the worst but all the officers want is to dance with the women. 

It is the inventive use of the camera that makes this film so compelling. The selection of shots, the carefully choreographed movements of the camera , the careful construction of each frame make the film flow in a fluid and pleasing way. Jansco makes film-making seem effortless.

Rating: 10/10