The Round-Up (1965)

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The Round-Up (1965) – M. Jancsó

I was afraid to watch this film about a government’s detention of political rebels in a distant Hungarian outpost for fear of seeing images of torture and degradation.  Unfortunately, however, the film has lost its ability to shock in the era of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Manus, Christmas Island, Villawood, etc.  The time is the 1860’s and the captors make good use of psychological techniques to divide and conquer the prisoners.  For example, one poor soul is told that he will escape execution if he can find another rebel who had committed more crimes against the government than he.  Things spiral downward as he acts in increasing desperation.    Jancsó moves people and horses around in geometric patterns out on the bleak Hungarian plains with only a sort of corral with cells and a white-walled interrogation building to break the monotony.  His trademark longshots are also in evidence.  Having seen The Red and the White (1967) and Red Psalm (1971), also about conflicts and revolts in panoramic landscapes, before this one seems also to have weakened the impact of The Round-Up.  Otherwise, as it likely did in the 1960s with its direct allusion to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, the film would hit one as a bold declaration of man’s inhumanity to man (and woman), something the world already knew too much about.