Szegenylegenyek (The Round-Up)

Miklos Jancso - 1966
This is really a great piece of simple filmaking; simple in that it is immensely complex, worlds and difficulties.
The camera, with a great wide frame (2.35:1), is pretty economical in its movements, is calm, controlled. This perhaps is what most contributes to the almost underwater (but clear), slow pace. The camera almost exclusively follows people, without obvious autonomy.
The wide screen us used to great effect. Two qualities of the image strike; firstly, the sheer whiteness of it; the pale, not overexposed, but not blacks. Also interesting is how much of the screen is filled with 'blank'; usually white walls. The image is balanced, but often what is on either side of the screen is different.
Jancso seems to want to avoid the obvious horizontals one might expect. He is known for small figures in the distance, almost abstract shapes, but in this film I found more of a closer focus, delibertely unexact and unsymmetrical (though balanced, one way or another) shapes. Their is no prettification of the image. Their are interesting shapes made by the square flanks of the armies and so on. We very much look forward to seeing, I hope 'The Red and The White'.
The calm oppression, not abstracted but made personal, is revealed by sudden turns, realisations that the execuation will take place, when some hope is achieved. The power is exercised slowly, without hurry, letting a thought of escape, then calmly extinguishing. Why no big surprises? The underlying slow atmosphere perhaps, the unclear narrative that avoids identification. Their are shocks, but they always seem to dawn, rather than strike.
The end is powerful because it doesn't seem to be designed to shock, though it does. It doesn't draw out the misery, is so blatant as a reverse, it discombobulates from the way a classical narrative would introduce such a shock. Then the credits come, and the music hammers.