THE RED AND THE WHITE (1967)

A.K.A.: Csillagosok, Katonak
Country: Hungary / U.S.S.R.

Genre(s): War

Director: Miklos Jansco

Cast: Jozsef Madaras / Tibor Molnar / Krystyna Mikolajewska

Plot

The Communist Red Army, aided by Hungarian recruits, are at war with the Czarist White Army along the Volga River.  A hospital becomes a point of contention during the fighting.

What I Liked

In so many war films, we know from the start that the hero is going to survive, if not the entire film, then until very late in the film.  In “The Red and the White,” not only are there no traditional examples of heroes, almost every character the camera follows for more than a few minutes eventually bites it in some unnecessary act of violence.  Very often the story follows one character until his or her demise and then follows that person’s executioner until that person too meets a senseless end.  Thus “The Red and the White” defies convention of with its arbitrary deaths.  For exemplifying the absurdity of war, the only film that I’ve seen that can compare is “Catch-22.”

Commissioned by the Soviet Union to portray the glory of Communist victory, director Miklos Jansco instead made a subversive film that uses the red versus white conflict as an example of what can be assumed to be his message, that all war is ultimately wasteful, ignominious, and dehumanizing.  Human beings are casually executed as though they are no more than garbage being dropped down the disposal.  Even those being executed seem bored and indifferent to the killing, as they just stand there, languid and expressionless, waiting for the bullet.  Soldiers march about according to the orders of their commanders, but seem to be moving toward nowhere in particular with no objective.  Sometimes they just wind up back where they started, but at least they’re in formation.  Civilians are herded around, divided, and organized for what seems to be no other purpose than the gratification of the military officers.  Women are treated as objects, stripped, humiliated, and raped by members of both sides in the fighting.

Naturally, the repulsed Soviet government ended up banning the very film they had financed.

What I Didn’t Like

Part of Jansco’s approach to showing the dehumanizing effect of war is to keep close-ups and personal dialogue to a minimum.  Nearly all of the shots are wide of landscapes, with groups of people moving about in various directions.  Thus we get to know the individual characters very little and instead watch it all as objective observers.  While I understood the director’s purpose with this approach, I found it so dehumanizing that I really didn’t care about anyone on the screen.  And if I don’t care about the people, why should it matter to me if they turn into corpses?  “The Red and the White” ultimately comes off like a philosophy treatise, as opposed to a compelling motion picture.

To be honest, I was often lost as to what exactly was going on.  Arbitrariness was again one of the filmmaker’s purposes, but I was so confused that my only care was how much longer the film would last so I could get my entry over with.  Getting through this movie took me three sittings and even then I was counting down the minutes.  Ultimately, while I respected what Jansco did, I didn’t care.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert!*

In perhaps the only scene that has any kind of intimacy with the characters, a nurse and a soldier come very close to making love when they are interrupted by the enemy on horseback.  The resulting terror, humiliation, and brutal death finally make the audience feel for the two lovers, just before we have to say goodbye to one of them.

My Rating: 2 out of 5