Red Psalm

Where Jancsó's Agnus Dei was opaque and difficult, this is crystal clear and involving: looking for a language in that film, he found it here and uses it with dazzling precision. Like his earlier films, Red Psalm is centred on a specific period in Hungarian history: the turn-of-the-century uprising of landless agricultural workers. It was a socialist uprising, and songs of the period - including a remarkable socialist Lord's Prayer - are woven into the film. A work of amazing and totally uncosmetic beauty, it's a folk tale around the belief of the people in their own ultimate victory, and the symbol Jancsó has chosen is the wounded palm that's also a rosette of hope.