Stars on the hats
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Stars on the hats |
| Original title | Csillagosok, katonák |
| Country of production | Hungary , Soviet Union |
| original language | Russian , Hungarian |
| Publishing year | 1967 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Miklós Jancsó |
| script |
Gyula Hernádi Miklós Jancsó Luca Karall Valeri Karen |
| production | Mafilm, Studio IV Mosfilm |
| camera | Tamás Somló |
| cut | Zoltan Farkas |
| occupation | |
| |
Stars on the hats (Hungarian original title: Csillagosok, katonák , alternatively Die Roten und die Weißen ) is a Hungarian - Soviet fictional film from 1967.
action
During the Russian Civil War around 1919. The Hungarian László, who fought on the side of the Communist Reds, escaped white persecutors. Back with his people, he discovers that they have caught a couple of white men who are forcing them to strip and run away. In a former monastery, the whites fall into a trap and are captured by the reds. The white commander orders them to run and then shoots them from a distance. In the case of a larger group of red prisoners, they send the fighters away from abroad and drive the Russian reds into dead ends in order to butcher them there. A couple of Reds flee to a military hospital where neutral nurses work; the patients belong to both camps. The red István falls in love with Olga, who helps him hide when white riders appear. They find István anyway and kill him. With blackmail they force Olga to reveal which patients belong to the Reds and shoot these men. Reds conquer the hospital and avenge Olga's betrayal with death. Soon they face a large army of whites and fall in battle.
background
Stars on the hats is the literal translation of the original Hungarian title Csillagosok, katonák , which, like a number of Jancsó movie titles, is a quote from a song. The film was slated for participation in the 1968 Cannes International Film Festival . However, the festival was canceled due to the May riots in France. The following year, the film was named Best Foreign Film of 1969 by the French Syndicate of Film Critics .
The film is a Russian-Hungarian co-production and was originally intended to be shown on the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. So Jancsó decided to set the film's plot two years later, in 1919, to show how the Hungarians supported the communist “reds” in fighting the tsarist “whites” as both adversaries were facing on the hills the Volga fought for supremacy. (The English title of the film is therefore The Red and the White ) Jancsó not only chose a different setting than expected, but also opted for a radically different approach to the film. Instead of heroically staging the birth of Soviet communism, Jancsó produced an anti-war film that not only shows the senseless brutality of the Russian civil war, but also of all armed struggles.
Reviews
The film wasn't well received in the Soviet Union, although it was previously revised to give the war a more heroic note from the Russian point of view. It was later even banned. In Hungary and Western Europe, on the other hand, it received positive reviews and was shown in cinemas in many countries. Stars on the Hats remains one of Jancsó's most watched and admired films, although it is often extremely difficult for audiences to follow the plot. The difficulty is due to the lack of central characters and the defiant rejection of war film conventions. For example, key moments like the deaths of certain characters are sometimes shot with a long lens from a distance rather than up close. This leaves the viewer unclear what happened or to whom it happened. Proponents of the film point out that the difficult-to-follow plot merely reflects the confusion and futility of the war itself, and that Jancsó seeks to prevent us from emotionally identifying with either side in the battle of ideologies. For this reason, critics (and even supporters) sometimes find the film "cold" and "mechanical".
Mira and Antonin Liehm comment on Jancsó's work as follows: “From the beginning of each of his films, the conflict situation, from which a whole series of actions and reactions will emerge, is firmly anchored, but without the fact that neither the director nor anyone else knows the causes . The viewer only sees the consequences of vector forces, so that they appear as if in a kind of perpetual motion machine: cause and effect, good and bad, winners and losers are apparently interchangeable factors. "
Web links
- Stars on their caps in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating at filmdienst.de
- ↑ a b reception
- ↑ in Les cinémas de l'Est, de 1945 à nos jours , Les Éditions du Cerf