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Winner of the Best Director Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Red Psalm is also one of the great Hungarian film director Miklos Jancsó's best-known films. Recounting the story of a peasant uprising in Hungary in the 1890s, the film examines the nature of revolt, and the issues of oppression, morality and violence. Shot using just 28 long takes, Red Psalm is an extraordinary film, a virtuoso exercise of form and content and a formidable work of art from a filmmaker at the peak of his powers.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Red Psalm has finally arrived from the excellent folks at Second Run.
It may only be 82 minutes and only 28 shots but this represents a lot of Miklós Jancsó magic.
The story itself concerns a socialist uprising of farm workers and the authorities suppression of their rebellion. It's like a kind of socialist passion play, executed in the round within the landscape, while the constant roving eye of the camera directs our gaze towards the events of the narrative.
This can seem quite confusing to begin with particularly if you haven't seen the director at work before. I would liken it to a cycle of fresco paintings in which the artist has represented a number of narrative moments simultaneously within one framing device. Within the 28 long takes which comprise the film the director marshals his resources composing the next scene as the continuous take progresses. What can initially appeared to be chaos is in fact a highly organised and meticulously choreographed sequence of events which remain stunningly cinematic. Please expunge any thoughts of Hitchcock's Rope from your mind.
Ostensibly this is a film without editing and the cuts between the long takes are a matter of necessity. Of course the constant re-framing is a form of spatial editing but remarkably Jancsó actually creates a temporal edit within the constructs of the long take. At one point it is clear, to me at any rate, that not only does the re-framing denote a progression within the narrative but it also indicates a shift in time within the narrative. It's the work of a genius.
The narrative itself remains somewhat amorphous while the cast represent archetypes of peasants, soldiers, clergy and landowners and so on, rather than defined characters with a 'back story'. Consequently, it is sometimes hard to discern exactly whose side some of them are on, as they roam in and out of the action. This may actually be part of the plot since the deception of one character, or group by another is a theme found in Jancsó's work, as in The Round-Up, for example.
This is another great release from Second Run and comes with an episode of the director's documentary series Message of Stones. And of course another excellent, informative and educational booklet, this time with an essay by Peter Hames.
The source material seems to have been in reasonable condition and on the whole the DVD looks very good. The 16:9 digital transfer 'with restored image and sound' is approved by the director. However, there are some rather under lit passages towards the latter part of the film that look very grainy on disc. I believe this simply reflects the fact that Jancsó has apparently continued to shoot well into the evening. And it all sounds good too.
An excellent package of a brilliant film.
It may only be 82 minutes and only 28 shots but this represents a lot of Miklós Jancsó magic.
The story itself concerns a socialist uprising of farm workers and the authorities suppression of their rebellion. It's like a kind of socialist passion play, executed in the round within the landscape, while the constant roving eye of the camera directs our gaze towards the events of the narrative.
This can seem quite confusing to begin with particularly if you haven't seen the director at work before. I would liken it to a cycle of fresco paintings in which the artist has represented a number of narrative moments simultaneously within one framing device. Within the 28 long takes which comprise the film the director marshals his resources composing the next scene as the continuous take progresses. What can initially appeared to be chaos is in fact a highly organised and meticulously choreographed sequence of events which remain stunningly cinematic. Please expunge any thoughts of Hitchcock's Rope from your mind.
Ostensibly this is a film without editing and the cuts between the long takes are a matter of necessity. Of course the constant re-framing is a form of spatial editing but remarkably Jancsó actually creates a temporal edit within the constructs of the long take. At one point it is clear, to me at any rate, that not only does the re-framing denote a progression within the narrative but it also indicates a shift in time within the narrative. It's the work of a genius.
The narrative itself remains somewhat amorphous while the cast represent archetypes of peasants, soldiers, clergy and landowners and so on, rather than defined characters with a 'back story'. Consequently, it is sometimes hard to discern exactly whose side some of them are on, as they roam in and out of the action. This may actually be part of the plot since the deception of one character, or group by another is a theme found in Jancsó's work, as in The Round-Up, for example.
This is another great release from Second Run and comes with an episode of the director's documentary series Message of Stones. And of course another excellent, informative and educational booklet, this time with an essay by Peter Hames.
The source material seems to have been in reasonable condition and on the whole the DVD looks very good. The 16:9 digital transfer 'with restored image and sound' is approved by the director. However, there are some rather under lit passages towards the latter part of the film that look very grainy on disc. I believe this simply reflects the fact that Jancsó has apparently continued to shoot well into the evening. And it all sounds good too.
An excellent package of a brilliant film.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Miklos Jansco's films of the 1960s and 1970s are unique in World Cinema. Their extraordinary choreography of radical political events in Hungarian history will not be to everyone's taste, but for me these are extraordinary films made by a director of possible genius. 'Red Psalm' continues with the style of 'The Round Up' (1965) and 'The Red and The White' (1967) in its stunning portayal of a peasant uprising and its consequence in rural C19th Hungary. You either like it or you don't - I love it.
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
'Red Psalm' is a wonderful, wonderful film. I had already seen (and loved) other Jancso films on their Second Run DVD releases, especially 'The Round Up', but this, I think, may be the best of the bunch. Made in the early 1970s, and in colour, unlike the other three Second Run releases, it is basically a highly symbolised and stylised retelling of a group of farm workers' idealistic socialist rebellion in Imperial Hungary 1892.
This is, I suppose, potentially dreary and worthy material for a film made behind the old iron curtain. However, in Jancso's hands, amazingly, what we get is a series of vividly colourful set pieces, all filmed in outdoor locations, of the group facing off against the troops sent to quell and disperse them, and of the encounters they have with the soldiers, each other, and the local nobility. The first half of the film in particularly surprising (to me, at least) as it is dominated by a series of songs - worker's hymns, what sound like folk songs, and even the old Burns ballad "Charlie is my darlin'" all pop up, usually sung by the group as a whole, male and female voices together. Along with visuals of circles forming and being broken, face offs against the enemy etc etc, the overall effect is very powerful and memorable.
As with his previous films, it's sometimes hard to follow who is who in the masses of bodies in shot, but in the end this hardly matters. The film is so striking and enjoyable - a feast for the senses - that it gets its message across anyway (which seems to be that these early socialists were unfortunate in being hopelessly ahead of their time, and that although the soldiers and the workers were, at root, drawn from the same levels of society, they had not realised this yet).
The DVD print is excellent, given the old source material, and the audio track is also crisp and fresh sounding. I have no personal connection to Second Run, the company who is sourcing and releasing these almost forgotten classics, when I say that I am immensely grateful for the work they are doing. I had barely heard of Jancso until two or three years ago and now rate him as an equal of Bergman, Antonioni, Bresson etc.
If you are a film fan and buy one DVD this year, this should be it. You won't regret it!
This is, I suppose, potentially dreary and worthy material for a film made behind the old iron curtain. However, in Jancso's hands, amazingly, what we get is a series of vividly colourful set pieces, all filmed in outdoor locations, of the group facing off against the troops sent to quell and disperse them, and of the encounters they have with the soldiers, each other, and the local nobility. The first half of the film in particularly surprising (to me, at least) as it is dominated by a series of songs - worker's hymns, what sound like folk songs, and even the old Burns ballad "Charlie is my darlin'" all pop up, usually sung by the group as a whole, male and female voices together. Along with visuals of circles forming and being broken, face offs against the enemy etc etc, the overall effect is very powerful and memorable.
As with his previous films, it's sometimes hard to follow who is who in the masses of bodies in shot, but in the end this hardly matters. The film is so striking and enjoyable - a feast for the senses - that it gets its message across anyway (which seems to be that these early socialists were unfortunate in being hopelessly ahead of their time, and that although the soldiers and the workers were, at root, drawn from the same levels of society, they had not realised this yet).
The DVD print is excellent, given the old source material, and the audio track is also crisp and fresh sounding. I have no personal connection to Second Run, the company who is sourcing and releasing these almost forgotten classics, when I say that I am immensely grateful for the work they are doing. I had barely heard of Jancso until two or three years ago and now rate him as an equal of Bergman, Antonioni, Bresson etc.
If you are a film fan and buy one DVD this year, this should be it. You won't regret it!
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