Electra, My Love

Miklos Jancso's 1974 Hungarian film moves the Electra legend onto a theatrical plain. Fifteen years have passed since her father Agamemnon was killed and Electra is still set on revenge. Aegisthus rules the country and everyone has accepted the arrangement. The film consists almost entirely of very long takes; the whole is built from around ten shots. The camera is in constant motion, the crowds move as choreography and the setting is an enclosed flat expanse. That manner is Jancso's known signature and reaches its furthest point here. The narrative offers not a historical event but an argument about power: killing a tyrant does not change the order, it only produces a new tyrant. The film was read in the context of Hungary after 1956. The red helicopter in the final scene is among the most discussed images in Hungarian cinema. Who it's for: those who like formally demanding Eastern European cinema. Who it's not for: viewers who want narrative and characters to follow; the film refuses both entirely.