alr

Seasons of Monsters
(Szornyek Evadja)

Screening on Film
Directed by Miklós Jancsó.
With György Cserhalmi, Ferenc Kallai, Jozsef Madaras.
Hungary, 1987, 35mm, color, 88 min.
Hungarian with English subtitles.
Print source: HFA

Renowned for the extraordinarily fluid, ornate, and highly stylized virtuosity of his camerawork, Miklós Jancsó repeatedly applies his formal preoccupations to the creation of what might be called dialectical "musicals." The subjects are frequently the same: parables on the theme of tyranny and revolution, betrayal and resistance, power and corruption. Admittedly difficult to absorb in a single viewing, the sheer dream-like construction and visual audacity of Season of Monsters richly rewards the open viewer. The film contains two story fragments: the first concerns an émigré professor who commits suicide after returning to Hungary and his former classmate, a physician who is called to the scene; the second focuses on a bizarre birthday celebration the physician attends. Jancsó uses different cinematic discourses—realistic and non-realistic—to articulate the story fragments, creating a complicated, puzzling vision of impending doom.

PRECEDED BY

  • Science Friction

    Directed by Stan Vanderbeek.
    US, 1959, 16mm, color, 10 min.
    Print source: HFA

One of the most innovative figures in experimental film, Vanderbeek specialized in combining radical formal techniques and progressive politics, as exemplified in this kinetic collage-animation satire on the Russian-US space race.

Part of film series

Read more

Treasures from the Harvard Film Archive: S–T

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Psychedelic Cinema

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Novo

Read more
sepia photo of Artie Freedman in silhouette with a video camera at show

Boston Punk Rewound / Unbound. The Arthur Freedman Collection

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a mausoleum that looks like a miniature Spanish cathedral, next to a variety of others, against an evening sky

The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil