La Tragédie de l'Homme

Full movie and review on my blog max4movies: Az Ember Tragédiája (international title: The Tragedy of Man) is a Hungarian animation epic about the first man and his search for how to transcend his own existence. The movie draws heavily on Christian mythology (e.g., the Biblical origin story) and Western culture (e.g., Renaissance or Ancient Rome) to present mankind's everlasting struggle for transcending mortality and fighting against the decay of cultural achievements. Thus, the presented themes are complex and for a mature audience who look for a narrative that poses these questions in a clever and sometimes stunningly animated way. Due to the movie's troubled production history, the animation quality differs vastly between the various segments, but most are still stunning and/or animated in a clever way.

Video of this review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O75A4qMqZss

The Tragedy of Man 2011 I've heard Marcell Jankovics called the Hungarian Walt Disney and after seeing his 1981 film Feherlofia I didn't find myself in a position to disagree. Although one could make the argument that Jankovics' vision surpasses Disney's. So with that in mind I eagerly started watching Tragedy of man, a near three hour long adaptation of the well known, in Hungary anyway, play by Imre Madach. The first half hour did not disappoint. Jankovics psychedelic animation and a bombastic audio track provide one of the most compelling visual representations of the biblical creation and the fall I have ever seen. The brilliance of the animation really shines here, Jankovics presents the Adam and Eve story in such a way that Christians will not find offensive but atheists will appreciate for the possibility of a purely psychological interpretation. Unfortunately, the rest of the film's animation quality does not keep in pace with this early segment, indeed most of the film has a sort of 1 frame per second look to it. You know when you watch the making-ofs for animated features and they have scenes that haven't gotten sent off to the in-betweeners for that fluid motion—well, much of Tragedy has that feel. Now, this doesn't really detract as it gives the film a sort of dream like quality and some of the sequences surpass any other animation I've seen in terms pure visual impact. But in the, for example, future segment something about the animation just felt unfinished. This does not surprise me as the film took 20 years to make of which much of the time reportedly Jankovic spent raising funding for the project. The film also has more or less a constant fast paced dialog throughout the 160 minute run time. So if you don't like reading subtitles I would suggest waiting for a dubbed track, if one ever comes along, which doesn't feel all that likely. Those aspects aside the film has a scope and vision beyond just about anything else that I can think of that currently exists in the medium. It goes right to the heart of the human condition with an unflinching critical eye. I would not feel surprised if you came away from this picture with a new perspective on your life and humanity as a whole. If you enjoy things like 2001 A Space Odyssey and can meet it half way Tragedy of Man might just provide one of the most rewarding film experiences available, animated or otherwise.

This Enormous animation on the tragedy of Man on our western society is refined by an excellent eastern European narration. It starts on premise of Man (in a religious way) till near future, always putting the dilemmas on how to create/live in a society as an human being... The imagery and narration are really strong, you have to be prepared to read a lot, since the subtitles will fly. It reminds me a lot of russian literature, seeking the true self of the human.

It would be a 10 stars if the movie had been finished. Indeed, the production lasted more than 20 years due to a lack of budgets and the grandiosity of this animation. Even if the whole movie is excellently crafted with surreal and creative art, sometimes the frames are too few. Don't worry, it doesn't get the experience down.

Based on the play form Imre Madach written in 1861, one of the major works of Hungarian literature. An amazingly deep play that is often compared with Milton's "Paradise lost" and Dante's "Divine comedy".

The scope fo the original play is inmense, deeply philosophical and incredibly rich in simbological and historical meaning. It goes from different stages of humanity with Adam, Eve and Lucifer and in each stage humanity's spirit strives for purpose in it's constant struggle. So it has already from the beginning a source material that is absolutely top notch literature.

Then comes Marcell Jankovics and makes this insane project, adapting this play in almost 30 years of work into a feature lenght movie.

And what a movie it is! Every single moment you eyes and ears are bombarded with constant information. If you are into ancient history, philosophy, existencialism, religion, art history... you're gonna love it.

Every single historical period is represented in the original style from the era, and it keeps mutating and transforming in front of your eyes. Every change and symbol that appears adds to the enormous amount of information.

So, I deeply encourage everyone to see it. Just try to be very awake cause there's a lot to take in.