My Way Home (Igy Jottem)

Miklos Jancso - 1965
Jancso opertaes with such a free camera. Pretty long takes that haven't met a tripod, through the country, moving around it. Not interested in continuity for the sake of it, pretty much the defintion of pan and scan. Except here we are close-in, often staying near, to the faces. Movements far away, unidentified figures fighting, violence, usually start off near the camera before going away. The camera can circle around heads and characters. Often moves are motivated by a follow, but they are also often not. Complete autnomoy is not really the point, but a freedom is.
A key question is; 'when to cut?'. Jancso's takes here are obviously long by normal standards, but at the same time they're not really too long (perhaps this impression is enhanced by their lack of stillness). It seems that a cut occurs simply when an image has no more, now, to give us. There would just be a repetition if the idea. We, ultimately, cut when it seems that we should see something else. The question from this is; 'who does anything else'?
In this mis-en-scene opressors can pop in, without expectations of them. These aren't shocks though, rather the low-key nature has a kind if inevitability. The dread of the place, the random but omnipresent domination, effects the very environment so even the cows seem, with their weight and stubborness, malevolent.
This doesn't set us precisely in a narrative, but is also not abstract; their are no great messages, just, ultimately, an inconclusive search home.