Cantata

If I jump on the established bandwagon of comparing Jancsó to Antonioni, a few disorganized observations can be added to that. For example, Antonioni (in the entire tetralogy) captures the rootlessness of modern man in his natural environment, i.e., the city (perhaps with the exception of The Adventure, where the countryside is already engulfed by industry in Red Desert), Jancsó leaves the city and progresses back towards the (still surviving original) countryside, where the main character tries to grasp something of his lost authenticity again. Unlike Monica Vitti, the protagonist of Cantata must personally grapple with not fulfilling the hopes of the past (again the relationship between the countryside and city = the traditional society's belief in the progress of modernity/city) and with personal reconciliation with the injustices of the same past (undeniable socio-economic modernization came at a very high cost in Eastern Europe). Therefore, the extent of "appropriation" of Antonioni by Jancsó does not seem important to me; rather, Cantata appears to be a skillfully transferred depiction of the crisis of modern man onto the specifics of Eastern Europe. (04/09/2014)