Szegénylegények, 1965
[The Round-up]
On
a raining afternoon in a remote Hungarian countryside at some indeterminate
time after the collapse of the 1848 revolution against Austrian
rule, an unassuming man is led away from the oddly surreal congregation
of weary prisoners who have been assembled at the courtyard of a
detention camp on nebulous grounds of suspicious activity. The camera
then fluidly tracks the movements of the characters as the prisoner
is escorted by an enigmatic, cloaked official into a room of a nearby
abandoned farmhouse, encounters another official on the premises
who, in turn, walks towards the rear of the farmhouse for his appointment:
an aging peasant woman (Ida Siménfalvy) summoned to identify
the remains of her husband and son. The first official methodically
and dispassionately reveals that the man has been arrested for smuggling
propaganda from an exiled patriot and revolutionary leader, Louis
Kossuth, into Hungary, but curiously, sets him free. In an understatedly
elegant long shot, the man is observed walking away before a shot
breaks the silence of the idyllic pastoral landscape, and the man
falls to the ground. Meanwhile, returning to the prison camp, the
old woman identifies the cowardly Janos Gajdar (János Görb)
as one of the roving outlaws, and is immediately brought before
the interrogators. With little hope of escaping the gallows, Janos
attempts to bargain for his life by acting as an informant for the
Austrian gendarmes and in the process, initiates a cycle of betrayal,
violence, and deceit in an attempt to ferret out the revolutionaries
from the randomly assembled prisoners.
Miklós Jancsó creates a sublime, provocative,
and haunting examination of moral bankruptcy and human cruelty in
The Round-up. A profound influence
on the spiritually bleak and alienated cinema of Hungarian compatriot
Béla Tarr, Jancsó's
signature detached long shots and spare, omniscient crane shots
reinforce the insidious, distrustful, and uncertain landscape of
Hungary after the failed revolution: the opening shot of the prisoner
roundup against the image of the setting sun on the barren plains;
the overhead shot of the captured insurgent's assassination that
tracks to a shot of the crowded prison yard; the circular procession
of shackled, hooded prisoners as they return to their holding cells;
the chaotic lashing of a woman that proves to be a catalyst for
disillusioned prisoners committing suicide. Through languid and
sweeping pans, minimal composition, and oppressive environment that
reflect the emotional vacuity, hopelessness, and isolation of the
detained prisoners, The Round-up
presents an understated, yet harrowing portrait of spiritual desolation,
betrayal, and existential limbo.
