The Red and The White

The 1968 Hungarian film The Red and the White is Jansco’s exploration of war. He takes advantage of the liberal attitude in Hungary. His difficult, and abstract filmic narrative is influenced by the modernist ideologies; his impulse is to force the viewer to look the film’s form. The story surrounds the war between the reds and the whites. Jansco’s photographic form concentrates on wide, distanced shots. He usually has long enduring shots. These filmic elements alienate the viewer from character attachment. Through these distanced shots, and lack of character attachment Jansco portends that war is void of identity.

Jansco shows how insignificant the individual is in the overall efforts of war. Not only that, but Jansco shows how meaningless the war is, and how trivial victory really is. Who wins in war where people and cultures on both sides are harmed, and even destroyed? Jansco presents both armies, red and white, as bad. He emphasizes the unnecessary and trivial choices made during war. For instance, many of the so-called victories involved senseless acts of humiliation against people of the opposing army.

The arbitrary rules of war achieve nothing. In fact, the war seems much like any ordinary board game, whose rules make little sense and only apply to the game, outside of the game these frivolous rules are completely insignificant. He shows how unstructured both armies are. However, in the midst of all this chaos Jansco adheres to strict filmic patterns. These patterns affect our perception of the film. His long shots detach us from the war. It is precisely in this detached state of mind where we are forced to question the actions of the film on whole. If the film surround a few main characters are our understanding of war would be muddle in character stories where we’d become preoccupied with the individual. Jansco makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want to impose this attachment to characters. It is even sometimes hard to pinpoint which army is which. This I think further detaches us, because we don’t even assess the validity of each army. Instead we confine our thoughts to war in its most basic and fundamental level of raw conflict.

The wide shot at the film’s end is clear example of how Jansco avoids any instance of emotional attachment. The characters in both armies are almost presented as like pieces or figurines in board game. This sequence blatantly depicts war as a sort of game. Overall, the lack of emotion and attachment is a form of manipulation in itself. This behavior, or mind set, influences us as viewers to lose a sense of hope. In the futility and sadness, Jansco focuses on the selflessness of war. He juxtaposes this harsh negative condition of war with a tranquil rural landscape. On the whole, he seems to be trying to show how unnatural war is, and show how our human condition is not based on those arbitrary rules and actions that result in murder and humiliation.