The Red and the White (DVD)

Set during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Miklós Jancsó's The Red and the White is a war film unlike any other.

In the brutal Civil War which took place, Hungarian volunteers supported the Red revolutionaries who were being hunted by the White government forces ordered to crush them.

Through its stylistic virtuosity, ritualistic power and sheer beauty, Jancsó invites us to study the mechanisms of power almost abstractly and with a cold eroticism that clearly portrays the utter futility of war. Although the film was an Hungarian-Russian co-production, the Russian authorities banned it from being shown anywhere in the Soviet Union.