Hungary, 1968
Length / Silence and Cry:
Blu-Ray (24fps): 77 minutes
DVD (25fps): 74 minutes
Length / Special features: 32 minutes
Sound /
Blu-Ray:
2.0 Dual Mono LPCM (48k/24-bit)
Sound /
DVD: 2.0 Dolby Mono
Black and white
Original aspect ratio:
2.35:1
Language: Hungarian
Subtitles: English
Blu-Ray: BD25
/ 1080 / 24fps / Region ABC
DVD: PAL / DVD9 / 25 fps / Region 0
Blu-Ray RRP: £19.99
DVD RRP: £12.99
Release Date: 26 Feb 2018
Second Run DVD 120 / SRBD 010
DVD |
Blu-Ray |
|---|
An elliptical, claustrophobic drama shot in the brilliant, breathtaking long takes that are Jancsó’s trademark, Silence and Cry is set after the fall of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. A young soldier, fleeing the anti-Communist manhunt, takes refuge at the isolated farm of a peasant family, who are already under police scrutiny.
The final part of an epic unofficial trilogy, following The Round-Up and The Red and the White, the film explores the cruel mechanics of oppression and resistance within the family, and how they echo the political turmoil that rages outside. The brutal beauty of Silence and Cry reveals the terrible impact of tyrannical power, politics and history.
Available on both Blu-Ray and DVD formats, Silence and Cry is presented from the brand new HD transfer of the film by the Hungarian Digital Archive and Film Institute, supervised by the film’s cinematographer János Kende, with special features including Jancsó’s renowned but rarely-seen documentary 'Jelenlét' trilogy of short films, and a booklet featuring an essay by film historian Tony Rayns.
• Presented from the brand new HD transfer of the film by the Hungarian Digital Archive and Film Institute, supervised by the film’s cinematographer János Kende.
• Presence I / II / III (Jelenlét) - World premiere HD presentation of Jancsó’s
renowned but rarely-seen documentary trilogy of short films.
• 12-page booklet featuring a substantial essay by author and film programmer Tony Rayns.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• Region Free Blu-ray and DVD
• World premiere release on Blu-ray.
Directed by Miklós Jancsó
Screenplay - Gyula Hernádi, Miklós Jancsó
Cinematographer - János Kende
Editor - Zoltán Farkas
Music -Tamás Cseh
Production Design - Tamás Banovich
Sound - Zoltán Toldy
Costume Design - Zsuzsa Vicze
Main Cast
Mari Törőcsik - Teréz
Zoltán Latinovits - Kémeri
József Madaras - Károly
Andrea Drahota - Anna
András Kozák - István
Miklós Jancsó's renowned films The Red and the White,
My Way Home, The Round-Up, The Confrontation, Red Psalm and Electra, My Love are also available on Second Run.
The Red and the White,
My Way Home and The Round-Up are also available in the 3-disc Miklós Jancsó Collection Box Set.
1968 Venice Film Festival / Nominated: Golden Lion
“The most noble aesthetic pleasure is the discovery of truth” Miklós Jancsó
“[Jancsó] occupies a unique place in Hungarian culture…
Just like Bartók in music and Attila József in poetry, Miklós Jancsó expressed the spirit of his nation and its historical destiny in cinema” István Szabó
“One of Jancsó’s masterpieces – perhaps even his best film of all – and totally unlike anything else in cinema” John Russell Taylor
“A masterly, hypnotic stylistic exercise by a major director...Jancsó’s depiction of the suspended reality and Kafkaesque despair produced by war is now complete”
Don Allen, Monthly Film Bulletintin
“Jancsó’s characteristic sequence shots turn the chamber-drama into a political thriller pregnant with wider connotations” Tony Rayns, Time Out
“Rarely has a portrait of a police state wielded such stunning force; its very brevity only amplifies its brute power. In 1919, after the defeat of the short-lived communist republic, a former Red soldier, Istvan, takes refuge from the agents of the White terror who are on his trail, on the farm of a politically suspect family intent upon nothing more than their own survival. When the soldier discovers that he is being poisoned, his kindly commander reveals that personal loyalty means nothing against the sadism of the state. Chilling in its absolute artistry, ritualistic in its rhythms and visual design, Silence and Cry turns the barren Hungarian prairie into a stage for its unremitting account of terror and tyranny, shot in the stunning, choreographed long takes that were the director’s trademark” Cinematheque Ontario
“A vision of which the central tenet was the way history repeats itself through the abuse of power in the name of a pummelled and put-upon people” Derek Malcolm