Directed by Dezső Magyar 
Screenplay by Péter Dobai 
Director of photography: Elemér Ragályi 
Music by Tihamér Vujicsics
Production: Balázs Béla Stúdió
2K restored

Just before the outbreak of World War I, an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is assassinated in the ‘powder keg’ of the Balkans by a Serbian resistance fighter. A military punitive expedition is despatched to the target, a small village. While on the march, they eliminate another assassin in an ambush. Once in the village they first liquidate the figure of the rebels depicted allegorically and then in retaliation burn the houses down. The somewhat thin plot of Punitive Expedition was in fact an expression of revolt against the prevailing oppressive authority, which was particularly pertinent after 1968. The film composed to the music of Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto was not released and the director never managed to make the five parts he had originally planned.

Screening before the movie Photography (Fotográfia).