The Round-Up

The Round-Up (original title Szegénylegények), directed by Miklós Jancsó and written with Gyula Hernádi, opened in Hungary on January 6, 1966, as a historical drama. Set about twenty years after the suppression of the 1848 to 1849 Kossuth uprising, in 1869, it follows a government commissioner trying to identify remaining members of the real outlaw Sándor Rózsa's gang and suspected rebels held in a prison camp. The film drew over a million admissions in Hungary and became Jancsó's first work to earn him international recognition; to secure its selection for the main competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, Jancsó had to give an official statement that the film bore no relation to current events, meaning the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which he later said everyone knew wasn't true, and the film is now read as an indirect allegory for the Soviet suppression of 1956. It was submitted as Hungary's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 39th Academy Awards but didn't receive a nomination. Re-screened in the Cannes Classics section in 2015, the film appeared on Béla Tarr's best ten films list in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll and among Barry Jenkins's favorites. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Hungarian film that used a historical setting to smuggle a recent revolution past censors, competed at Cannes, and is regarded as a classic by today's directors. Who it's not for: viewers expecting heavy dialogue, since the film is known for minimal speech and choreographed camera movement instead.