Red Psalm

Miklós Jancsó's 1972 Hungarian film is about an uprising of farm workers on the plain in the 1890s. But it builds no plot: the characters have no names, the speech explains nothing and the history stays as background. The film consists almost entirely of long takes, the camera moving unbroken through the crowd while people gather in circles, disperse and gather again. Folk songs and revolutionary anthems are sung inside the scenes and that music takes the place of narrative. The violence is stylised, with no separation left between gunshots and dance. Jancsó treats oppression and revolt in an abstract, ceremonial language and asks the viewer to give up their habits. It won best director at Cannes. Who it's for: viewers who like formalist cinema and the experimental work of Eastern Europe. Who it's not for: anyone looking for character and story; the film refuses both.