At the 1966 Cannes film festival, a movie whose title sounded like a western – but was actually Hungarian – caused a sensation and launched its director into the international cinematic scene, where he was to remain for a decade. The film of hypnotic beauty and daring technique was The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, literally translated as The Outlaws) and the director was Miklós Jancsó, who has died aged 92.

Jancsó's highly personal style had blossomed in this, his fifth feature. The Round-Up is set on a bleak Hungarian plain in 1868, when Austro‑Hungarian troops tried to break the unity of the Hungarian partisans by torture, interrogations and killings. There is little dialogue as horsemen drive the people to and fro, with power continually changing hands. Jancsó's ritualistic style manages to make the particular Hungarian situation into a universal parable of evil, ending with a cry of hope.

Quelle: The Guardian