Blood Red Documentary Review (IDFA 2025)
In all honesty, I cannot remember the last time my guts issued an absolute eye-turn away from the screen. If a picture manages to provoke such a visceral reaction within its first seconds, take it from me, you will stay transfixed until its final moments.
Blood Red is a suggestive title for physical violence, and it delivers lavishly, even if the tray is black and white (bless them). Do not get your hopes too high; the opening scene may unfold a bloodshed capable of converting every carnivorous biped out there, but, mercifully, it does not resort to ghastly imagery. Instead, Blood Red settles into the company of labour workers, meeting them one at a time. Over the course of 75 silent minutes, the camera meanders with astonishing curiosity through the countryside of Eastern Europe, where men go about their business. A farmer, a security guard, a construction worker are some of the ordinary men with whom we spend some almost ritualised time. Do not mind me, but they all seemed to me like the same single man: a middle-aged, weathered figure, probably nourished on bread and alcohol, who has learned no smile and no display of emotion, yet remains utterly irreplaceable in the job he performs.
Alternating between distance and proximity, steady compositions and wavering movements, the camera becomes our eyes as we stand by. Chapter after chapter, the film builds tension with precise consistency, urging us to either question or respect (depending on who is watching, I suppose) the work a man does simply by relying on his physical memory. Something I am certain many of you would appreciate. Though there is one firm prerequisite: familiarity with the particular odour of wet, long-cultivated soil.
The film brims with cold sensations. The wind, as if looming from the neighbouring mountains or coursing through the bare trees, emerges as an overseeing, ever-present character. A powerful sense of grounding: that is what Blood Red ultimately embodies. It is the same grounding that fuels the human body, keeping it running through our individual perpetuity.
Let us not dwell on whether Blood Red fits cleanly into the documentary realm. Czech director Martin Imrich must have studied, with enviable devotion, the work of his script advisor Béla Tarr, for every moment feels like a meditative outgrowth of Tarr’s brilliance. Speaking personally, this thought only heightens the pleasure of the viewing and keeps me imagining all the ways Tarr’s influence could shape imperatives in documentary filmmaking.
Still, the credit for this beautiful and intricate camera choreography must be attributed to Imrich himself and the cinematographer Václav Pavlíček. (Have they indeed shot this on an iPhone?) It is as mature and convincing as it is playful and enchanting. What a glorious and attentive stay with the often neglected peripheries of our social structures!
★★★★ 1/2
Blood Red had its world premiere at the 2025 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, in the Envision Competition.
Blood Red (Západ), 75’ / Dir. & Writer: Martin Imrich / Production: Vít Janeček for D1film Ltd., Ondřej Šejnoha for FAMU / Cinematography: Martin Imrich, Václav Pavlíček / Editing: Martin Imrich / Sound Design: Matěj Lindner / Screening copy: D1film Ltd. / Czech Republic
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