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domino harvey wrote: Thu Sep 18, 2025 2:48 pm Mephisto is befitting our recent discussion about one time art house titans. Didn’t realize Kino finally put it (and Redl) out recently, but I have no doubt Second Run will give us something better here as a package

Stefan Andersson wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 10:28 am Colonel Redl runs 144 minutes according to ImdB, but 167 minutes according to this page:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redl_ezredes_(film)

Might the longer version be a domestic cut, or a pre-release cut, perhaps shown at a film festival before being shortened?

GaryC wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 11:09 am

Stefan Andersson wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 10:28 am Colonel Redl runs 144 minutes according to ImdB, but 167 minutes according to this page:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redl_ezredes_(film)

Might the longer version be a domestic cut, or a pre-release cut, perhaps shown at a film festival before being shortened?

For what it's worth, it was 149 minutes in UK cinemas, as per the BBFC, and as I saw it twice I can confirm that. I don't know where the 167-minute length comes from, or if that was a version ever shown officially.

GaryC wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 11:09 amFor what it's worth, it was 149 minutes in UK cinemas, as per the BBFC, and as I saw it twice I can confirm that. I don't know where the 167-minute length comes from, or if that was a version ever shown officially.

István Szabó:
Mephisto ∕ Colonel Redl ∕ Hanussen
Limited Edition 3-disc Blu-ray Box Set

István Szabó is perhaps the most renowned of all Hungarian filmmakers, having made hugely successful, Oscar®-winning films across Europe and in Hollywood.

This Box Set uncovers the most creative and exuberant period of Szabó’s Hungarian cinema, with a trio of exceptional films made in collaboration with actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, writer Péter Dobai and cinematographer Lajos Koltai: Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). These films unravel the conflicts of history, society, and the individual. Each is an audacious, beautifully shot, and brilliantly executed tale of moral corruption.

These important and evermore powerfully relevant films are presented from stunning 4K restorations, and released for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.

Mephisto (1981): Szabó’s brilliant retelling of the Faust legend centres on a struggling but wildly ambitious actor in 1930s Germany who dispels his political qualms to revel in the adulation he craves. But success, inevitably, comes at a price... Widely acknowledged as Szabó’s masterpiece, Mephisto is a haunting study in ambition, opportunism, and compromise.

Colonel Redl (1985): Set in the years before WW1, the film charts the rise and fall of the brilliant but unscrupulous Alfréd Redl, an ambitious young officer who becomes the head of the Austro-Hungarian Secret Police. Klaus Maria Brandauer’s brilliant performance conveys the emotional complexity of a life destroyed by deceit and moral cowardice, as Redl becomes a prisoner of his own deceptions.

Hanussen (1988): Based on a remarkable true story, Szabó’s third collaboration with Brandauer tracks clairvoyant Hanussen’s rise in parallel with the Nazi regime to dark, mesmerising effect.

"Szabó emerged from the Hungarian New Wave of the 1960s with a series of deeply moral works"
Senses of Cinema

3-DISC BLU-RAY BOX SET
OUT 8 DECEMBER 2025

• Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988) presented from 4K restorations by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive, supervised and approved by cinematographer Lajos Koltai
• Four of István Szabó’s short film works, newly remastered in HD by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive: Variations on a Theme (Variációk egy témára, 1961), You (Te, 1963), Concert (Koncert, 1963), and City Map (Várostérkép, 1977).
• Istvan Szabó - The Director Answers: A video interview with Szabó.
• Remembrance of József Romvári: Filmmaker Sophy Romvári’s tribute to her grandfather, the production designer József Romvári.
• Szabó’s Central Europe: a look at the director's Hungarian films.
• Individual booklets each with new writing by Hungarian cinema experts John Cunningham, Peter Hames and Catherine Portuges, and journalist Stephen Lemons on the real-life Erik Jan Hanussen.
• Trailers.
• Hungarian and German audio options on all three Features.
• New and improved English subtitle translations.
• UK premieres on Blu-ray.
• Region-free Blu-rays (A/B/C).