Elektreia

There are two main levels in Jancsó's enthralling reinvention of the Elektra myth as a fable of permanent revolution. One is the troubling analysis of people's capacity for submission to tyranny; the other is the triumphant celebration of the 'firebird' of revolution, reborn daily with the rising sun. Grounding the political fable in the story of Elektra and Orestes' revenge on their father's murderer, Aegisthus, gives it an implicit psychoanalytical dimension of a kind new in Jancsó's work. The film's balletic and musical elements are even more central than they are in Red Psalm: the rhapsody of song and dance replaces conventional dramatic exposition, leaving Jancsó free to explore the dialectical cross-currents of his subject. It's mesmerising.