User Reviews

This is probably one of the most dense films ever made. For that reason, Angyali üdvözlet will find a very small audience. But if there is one thing that this film does very well it is creating some very good surreal visuals - and this is not to be understated. Surrealist film lovers should make this a must see.

At its core, the film is about Lucifer's premonition of the tragedy of mankind as told to Adam and Eve in a dream after they are banned from Eden. The dream starts at Athens, where Adam, Eve and their son find themselves at the wrong end of the first form of democracy, which is an irrational mob rule - they are the "royals" and when Adam fails to deliver the wishes of the people, he is killed.

Adam later finds himself in Byzantium as what I can only speculate, a Roman soldier. At this point, the film kind of becomes confusing to anyone who isn't highly educated in European history. So after this, the film is technically very hard to follow, but visually, it's a kind of surreal experience. It goes to periods in the history of western civilization which are some of the most bloody and repressive. Lucifers plan here in telling these premonitions to Adam and Eve was to try to get them to end their lives, because if they did, it would prevent all of these future tragedies from happening.

There are times where you can tell that the film was probably rushed through post production. But overall, it's a miracle that such a film was made in the first place. It's a cast composed entirely of children, but they do quite well at taking direction from Jeles. You can tell that their performances were a kind of "you stand there" kind of thing. While Adam, Eve and Lucifer are the only characters with character, the supporting cast's mechanical performances create an appropriate contrast and set the mood of the film quite effectively.

My biggest problem with the film is the VHS transfer; it's terrible. I can only hope that in the future this film is given proper distribution. But it is so obscure I doubt it ever will.

This is definitely an art house movie. It will not draw hordes of adolescents looking for raw sex and graphic violence. But it's not a cheesy, slapdash, black-and-white, improvised exercise in egotism either. Whatever it is, it's been constructed with lavish care.

Children, average age about ten, I would guess, enact myths and (maybe) some real historical events from Western history. It begins with part of the familiar text from Genesis -- Adam and Eve and Lucifer and the apple.

Then it switched from the Bible to something a little tougher, an enactment of certain events in Greek history involving a boy named Cimon and somebody named Crispos. I only recognized the name of Miltiades and that only cropped up once in a while.

A slow switch to what the title tells us is "Byzantium." I'm glad there was such a title otherwise I'd have been utterly lost. Two kids, Tancred and Isaura, now seem to be in love, at least as far as I could make out. In my ignorance, I could only associate the boy's name with one of those operas that never get produced.

Before I knew it, they were dealing with Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer/astrologist/mathematician. I learned two things about him that I hadn't known. He gave political advice based on the stars, and his mother was imprisoned for witchcraft. Good. I mean, good that I learned something, not good that his mother was a witch.

Vorkapich to the French Revolution, by which time there is little trace left of mythos and a lot more of then-current events.

That was a bit more than half-way through, about as far as I could get.

You may get a lot farther, depending on your taste for highly stylized enactment of mythical and real events by preadolescent children. The kids don't really have to act. It's as if they'd been given directions to speak softly or whisper, to move slowly, to assume strange postures, and never ever to giggle or look at the camera.

Despite the ambitious subject matter, we're not talking epic film here. The budget must have been small but there's still a lot of talent behind the camera. The compositions, arty though they may be, are appealing to the eye. The production designer deserves a medal for making so much out of so little. The very texture of the walls sings. Wardrobe is splendidly done, and the make up is even better than anything I've seen in Polk Gulch on Halloween night. That's saying a lot.

I'm just not sure I see the point, though. Why children? For the Garden of Eden, okay -- but the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror? How about goats next? And, for my benighted mind, the agenda was too ambitious. If I KNEW the events already, I'd have been able to follow the story. But, man, if your memory is blank or even hazy, you're in serious trouble.

Still, though the conception might be flawed, I give the writer and director bonus points for being willing to take such a major chance, and to invest the effort with what was clearly a lot of love. It's not the kind of production that results from some half-gassed bull session that revolves around a couple of bottles of tokay -- and it's certainly not a joke.

Every now and then I read a book or see a movie that leaves me increasingly puzzled, even frustrated - until suddenly, towards the end, everything comes together and it all makes sense (the first time I remember this was John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany"). This movie is just such a creation.

The plot idea is superb: Adam and Eve, having succumbed to Lucifer's temptation, are cast out of the garden of Eden. Adam holds Lucifer to his promise: "You said I would know everything!"; so Lucifer, in return, grants Adam a dream of the world to come. And what a bizarre dream: Adam becomes Miltiades in Athens; a knight called Tancred in Byzantium; Kepler in Prague; Danton in revolutionary Paris; and a nameless suitor in industrial London. All of the episodes end in tragedy, and all involve a man separated for ever from his true love.

Other critics have commented on how the episodes become increasingly surreal and confusing, and by three-quarters of the way through the movie I was as bewildered as anyone. But it is when Adam awakes, and Eve tells him that she is carrying his child, that it all starts to come together. Adam has seen his descendants create a world that spirals into madness; and he has also seen that in his misguided attempt to stay forever with Eve, he has condemned all his descendants to separation, whether by death, deceit, adultery, or even misguided piety. His heartfelt plea to God as he clutches his pregnant wife's abdomen - "Lord, shall my kind progress, or like cattle in the treadmill stay within the circle?" - is a challenge. Have we progressed, or have we fulfilled Lucifer's vision of a self-created Hell?

The movie is beautifully filmed, with little bizarre touches weaving a dream-like milieu. There are some fine performances, particularly from the eerily beautiful Lucifer. All-in-all a weird and thought-provoking movie.

This is a beautiful and daring adaptation of a classic piece of Hungarian theatre. The play was originally written as "The Tragedy of Man" and to this date is regarded as Imre Madách's masterpiece. The first time I read the play, I was amazed by the breadth and scope of it and actually thought "This will never make it to screen - it's too big."

For more information on the play, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Mad%C3%A1ch - warning, the Wiki article contains spoilers.

I now own a copy of it and enjoy it every time I watch it. The movie adaptation can be a bit daunting for those who have not read the play, so in my opinion, reading it is defiantly recommended.

I only have two issues with the movie:

1) Only ten of the original fifteen acts are included.

2) The entire cast is children. An interesting conceit, but not really necessary as the original protagonists were written in standard mode, ie: kings, nuns, soldiers, etc. were portrayed as adults.

Overall, a very good movie with terrific locations, photography and acting from it's young cast.

One of the most ambitious films I have ever seen and it delivers throughout. The visuals are stunning, the score plays a significant role in the atmosphere and the use of child actors adds fundamental new meaning to the original stage play. It's a philosophical view on good and evil and tackles the big questions of life via poetry, history and surrealism. Though made to look like a dream, it touches on profound questions of reality.

One scene which was particularly though-provoking was the one in which a woman gives birth while standing above an open grave. The cycle of life and death, hinted at by the quote from Ecclesiastes right at the beginning, is here taken to its visual extreme. This harrowing image is followed by a very serene sequence, portraying the eternal peace of the deceased.

In all of this the choice for child actors adds extra layers of meaning. Their very age seems to comment on the issues shown: death, violence, injustice and so on. There is a lot of blood and a lot of lust shown on screen, but the actors are still playing hide and seek and let's pretend in real life. It's that mixture of playful innocence and adult history, adorned with some of the most beautiful literary quotes, which gives this film its daring and unique style.

One of the themes running through the film is the question of how we look at the world, at ourselves and at history. The movie challenges us to open up and accept unusual viewpoints, which is what all great art does, in my opinion. It's necessary, especially when confronted with violence and injustice and forced to look for solutions.

I do admit it's trying at times and it was mostly out of curiosity to see this remarkable achievement all the way through that I watched the whole thing. Still, it left me with an impression unlike anything else I have seen before. I wonder what the actors think of the film now that they have all grown up and how they look back on their experience in making it. Maybe it felt just like a dream.