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SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Jackson Booth-Millard I found this Hungarian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I could not find many critical reviews for it, so I did not have other opinions to go with, but I watched and hoped for something good, directed by Miklós Jancsó (The Red and the White). Basically the story is set in the 1890s on the Hungarian plains, a group of farm workers go on strike and will face harsh retaliation and experience the realities of the revolt, oppression, morality and violence. The iconic images I recall are many women being stripped completely naked and walking across the plains, but the most significant is the image of a woman getting a gunshot in the hand, her wounded hand being held in the air, he hand red and the blood draining down her arm. This is later used as a statement for peace, or something, as many other people wear red velvet on their hands, holding them in the air, to represent the bloody hand, as they march on the plains against whatever enemy they fight. The cast are all unknowns but they all do their parts fine, the film mainly consists of 28 shots and the poignant symbolic imagery, using the colour red to great effect, the title relates obviously to the colour and that religious songs are sung a few times, the title is also a literal translation from a poem, "And the People Still Ask", this film may not be high profile or rated by many critics yet, but it is one that should be recognised as a good interesting drama. Worth watching!

Emil Bakkum The film Red Psalm is more a fantastic ballet or opera than a realistic story. It portrays the revolutionary spirit in the Hungarian countryside. The events play in a feudal society, where the village is constantly plundered by passing soldiers. Actually the cavalrymen are always and persistently present in the background of the sets. Whilst the soldiers make away with the lute, the peasants dance, make music, sing and deliberate. Now and then they kill an officer, a civil servant or a priest, nothing to make a song and dance about. Or they are massacred themselves by the military. In short, the film rejects feudalism and praises freedom. It is a glorification of peasants' uprisings, not of a socialist (industrial) revolution. I enjoy revolutionary hymns, and recognized the usual song: the Marseillaise, the Internationale and the Varshavyanka. Red Psalm is clearly rooted in the Leninist tradition, and it shows the typical Leninist contradiction. For on the one hand the regime of the state was red tape: conservative, bureaucratic and official. And on the other hand the state culture glorified revolutions of all kinds. This includes the sexual revolution, for again and again three naked women pop up on the scene. It also includes the invention of the wheel (joke). The Leninist state itself provided a living to the people and even allowed the production of films like this one. But it ruled by command and was devoid of freedom. In summary, I would not call Red Psalm a master-piece, but is is agreeable to watch. If you enjoy Leninist films, consider seeing my other reviews.

raskimono How does one go about describing this movie? Odd? Bela Tarr before Bela Tarr. Boring. Without a doubt. Definitely not for the mainstream cinema goer but is it also for the art house lover? Only a hard-core alternative cinema can love this movie. But can you appreciate it? sure. Roving cameras. Complex rhythms and sudden breakouts into song and dance, yet there is nothing musical about it. It is first and foremost a mood piece. To understand it, you really need to know the background of the opus. This might be considered a spoiler."According to film critic, Raymond Durgnat, the movie is based on a series of psalms, thus the title, and prayers written circa 1890. They are of a socialist nature echoing such biblical models as the Lord's Prayer."END OF SPOILERKnowing the background, the movie makes sense as a series of short stories, each ending with the same thematic resolution. A socialist parable for chaotic times. It was the seventies after all. Using a kind of folk narrative medium, kind of like performing in the village square for the elders, it possesses an African or European medieval story telling technique. Hard to follow, except as a tale of the lower classes versus the aristocracy and tyranny, it is something short of a dictum for revolution. Refusing to explain itself, it comes across as live theater packed with heavy symbolism. There is blood and lots of it. Gun shots and death. Camaderie, community, resistance, nakedness of the soul and death. Rambling in circles, at times, it is laughable; sprinkled with unusual sound edits, curious performances and image synching. But it is all controlled by the invincible hand of Jancso who orchestrates the mise-en-scene like a virtuoso marionettist. Tricky, intricate camera movements supposedly done in 28 shots make up the movie. It is a ballet of zoom lenses curious camera set-ups and resistance to the basic nature of its medium. Neither here or there on the engrossing meter scale, it does present experimental cinema and a different film vocabulary. Championed by some wayward critics over the years, it did win the best director at the Cannes film festival. So that is what you get. Limited story, confusing actions and narrative arc in a stop and go fashion but camera tricks comparable to the best of Fellini. PS. I saw the movie on the big screen but the projectionist framed it to look like a big TV screen. It looked odd. I have no idea if this was the original framing.

MARIO GAUCI In the book “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” eminent film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote about RED PSALM being “…dazzling…awesome…ravishing…striking…it may well be the greatest Hungarian film of its time…”; conversely, Miklos Jancso'’s acknowledged masterpiece THE ROUND-UP (1965) – which I adore – is conspicuous by its absence in that singular pantheon. Besides, the late great film critic Raymond Durgnat wrote extensively about this film in his very last article published in 2002. Furthermore, Jancso' won the best direction prize at the Cannes Film Festival when Joseph Losey (whom I admire a great deal) was the President of the Jury and where RED PSALM was competing against such remarkable contenders as Robert Altman’s IMAGES, Harry Kumel’s MALPERTUIS, Peter Medak’s THE RULING CLASS and Andrei Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS! Why is it, then, that my star rating is such a lowly one? There is no doubt in my mind that this is a key work in the director’s canon (which makes my underwhelmed reaction all the more painful to me) but, frankly, this is truly a case where form completely overpowers content or, to put it in the apposite layman’s terms, a film which can only be admired but not enjoyed. The main reason for this is that the entire running time (a relatively modest 81 minutes in PAL mode) is taken up by Jancso'’s obsession with politics and folklore with no space left for any real characters to emerge much less a discernible plot line. This would hardly be a problem in itself where it not for the fact that when somebody takes a break from the constant – and by now familiar – communal dancing marathons (which, thankfully, does mean that some of the typically stunning girls get to shed their clothing), they do so only to spout a litany of Communist diatribes which completely wear the viewer (and the film itself) down before long. Although Jancso'’s exuberant visual style always had a certain aloofness to it, I really didn’t connect at all with any of the characters or events depicted here. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that this is one time where the English subtitles (which, in themselves, are grammatically awkward and replete with spelling mistakes) distinctly felt like an intrusion and their verbosity detracted from the power of the meticulously composed images. Consequently, one’s enjoyment of the film as a whole suffers for it and given the generic, prosaic nature of the dialogue, I might well consider watching the film unsubtitled in the future! Amusingly enough, however, the Catholic prayer of Our Father is even blasphemously transformed into a Communist credo at one point.Still, this is not to say that the film is completely worthless: the rebelling peasant farmers sing various songs (a couple of which are in English) that, while lyrically are merely propagandistic, are also melodically haunting. Given Jancso'’s penchant for lengthy, traveling sequence-shots (the film is said to contain a mere 26 in all!) which are, essentially, its true raison d’etre, some striking images can’t help but stand out, in particular the burning of a church by the peasants and their eventual massacre by the landowners’ army of defenders. Even more remarkable is Jancso' fusing his historical recreation with unexpected but decidedly welcome fantasy elements which sees dead people coming back to life with a kiss and, in an unheralded uproar to which nobody retaliates, an incensed peasant woman shoots several soldiers in quick succession single-handedly, etc.As a result of my disappointing viewing of RED PSALM, I have decided to to take a sabbatical from Jancso' for now and postpone the three other films of his that I have in my possession to a later date (by which time, nevertheless, hopefully I would have acquired two more)…