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Jun 10, 2015alpaca85 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Soviet cinema is a funny thing. From the outside, you would expect their films to contain a sense of patriotism and superiority, reflective of the image they wanted to promote. But, peek inside and you’ll find a surprisingly bleak, sad and reflective experience. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the only Soviet films I have seen are the ones that were made available over here; the ones that purposely broke “the rules.” And in a way, I can see that. After all, no Soviet censor in the right state of their mind would release The Red and The White. It’s not that Jancso’s film is anti-communist, far from it. The film is anti-war, a label that extends itself to both parties; the communists and the imperialist “whites”. A quick glance at the Russian Civil War will tell you that it was fought between these two ideologies and, eventually, the “Reds” won. But The Red and The White is not concerned with partisan ideologies, with a victor or a loser. The beauty, and the power, in the film lie in Jansco’s ability to make the act of war so repulsive that, by the end, it seems as if no one wins. The film follows a nomadic structure, beginning at a crumbling old fortress and slowly progressing from there to a hospital and, finally, a battlefield. There are no main characters to speak of, only a collection of faces which pass, flickering on and off of the screen as they pass by. There’s a Hungarian, but he dies soon into the film. Then there’s a boy, well perhaps he is man, but he looks young enough to be either. He toughs out the whole film, but we never hear him say a word. Then there’s a nurse. She drifts in and out of the film. We never find out her name. The reason I feel comfortable divulging all this is because none of these characters have enough time to develop into anything but people. They simply exist on the screen as a means to push the story forwards. Not even the anti-war Russian classic Come and See had such strict devotion to anonymity. By choosing to adapt a style of almost anti-storytelling, Jansco presents his actors not as characters, but as people, humans, representative of the atrocities of war. Why spend time building up an emotional attachment when they’re all going to die anyways? This kind of cold statement helps truly realize the genius of the nature of the film. You’re able to analyze the conflict without bias. There are no heroes and there no villains in war. The film says that, instead, everyone is guilty. Jansco’s message is aided immensely by the stunning black and white cinematography of Tamas Somlo. From an epic, sweeping battlefield shot at the end of the film to a beautiful series of long shots, most notably a haunting scene in the woods. The unwavering nature of these long shots seem to test the viewer. Jansco is presenting his truth, what he believes to be the reality of war. The desaturated black and white offers a simple, sneaky little message. After all you can’t see the colour red in black and white. The pantheon of great anti-war films, which includes Paths of Glory, Come and See and Ivan’s Childhood, must make room for one more. The Red and The White excels in doing something which no other film has. It strips a film down to its most lyrical and basic parts, and then proceeds to hammer a message on top until the film is complete. But, it never becomes dull or uninteresting because, simply, the message itself is so compelling and the film itself so compellingly crafted.