Winter Wind

                     
Miklós Jancsó's Winter Wind is a disquieting historical pageant from 1969. The focus on Balkan politics in 1934 is the principle reason for the obscurity of this film in the United States. The film presupposes a knowledge of the Eastern European politics of the era that, then or now, is uncommon in this country. Winter Wind starts with newsreel footage of the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles in 1934. Alexander had reigned as King since 1921 and was seen as a bulwark against the rise of fascism in Europe. He was in Marseilles to negotiate a treaty of friendship with France prompted by shared fears of Germany and Italy. The assassin was a member of a Macedonian nationalist group that was based in and supported by fascist Italy.

Even though Winter Wind's prologue shows this assassination, the events of the subsequent film are set just before the assassination. They depict a Croatian Nationalist group based at a country estate in Hungary who engage in terrorist acts across the border. The Croats, like the Macedonians, would not accept the dominance of a Serbian ruler. Recruits to their camp practice their marksmanship on portraits of the king. Into their midst arrives a bold and Byronic leader with a price on his head, Marko Lazar (Jacques Charrier). Lazar distrusts his comrades, knowing that they are likely to sell him out to the Yugoslav authorities or their watchful hosts in Hungary; and he is eventually proved correct. Jancsó constructs his film in twelve long takes, using dollies and pans. The camera whips around Lazar who feels he is already a captive at the estate and the technique coveys both his claustrophobia and his justified paranoia.

Ewa Swann and Marina Vlady

Two comely femmes (Ewa Swann and Marina Vlady) are offered up to Lazar as treats, but he is too wary to engage them, presumably viewing them as honey traps. They seem more interested in each other, nuzzling together like Courbet's sleepers. The presence of noted, non-Hungarian actors is a testament to the rise of Jancsó's international reputation after the acclaim received by The Round-Up and The Red and the White. Vlady and Swann have little to do but stand around and look alluring. Charrier, however, is quite striking as Lazar. He is handsome enough to provide the romantic dash needed for the role, but is actor enough to impress upon us the character's narcissism. He struts and preens across the screen like a tiger in a cage emanating whiffs of Eros and Thanatos. Charrier was a promising romantic lead of the French cinema of the late 50s and 1960s (most notably in Chabrol's The Third Lover), but grew bored with cinema and returned to his first love, painting. His first wife was a woman named Brigitte Bardot.

Winter Wind was Jancsó second color film after the bloated political allegory, The Confrontation. Both of these films are transitional works in which Jancsó is moving towards the colorful musical and political tapestries of Red Psalm and Electra, My Love. The pageantry of The Confrontation lurches into the ridiculous at times. What is meant to portray Hungary adjusting to Communist rule in 1947 is, to my eyes, a sop to the youthful explosion of the Summer of Love and a warning to the countries of the Warsaw Pact not to fall prey to a movement like the youth-led Chinese Cultural Revolution. Whatever the heck it's about, The Confrontation falls prey to its overly broad scope, inordinate length, and modish youth movement jive. Winter Wind use of color is as assured as in The Confrontation, but is a much more compact and focused film at 74 minutes. It represents a bit of a retreat after the excesses of the Confrontation, but is a much better film. Jancsó's warnings about right wing nationalism seems even more prescient today, particularly with the ascendancy of Viktor Orbán in Hungary.