Living Through Animated Millenniums

C M Y K Sxxx,2012-11-11,AR,018,Bs-4C,E1 18 AR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012 FILM From left, the Garden of Eden, ancient Egypt and ancient Greece in “The Tragedy of Man,” an animated film from Hungary. IMAGES FROM MOZINET Living Through Animated Millenniums By ROBERT ITO fer and Adam visit a socialist Michelangelo — or at least his re- coming?’ they asked. Everybody cludes stopovers in ancient animation. Filmmaking in that Greece, 17th-century Prague, country was a state-run affair, N 1996 the Hungarian Film community sometime in Earth’s incarnated form — is a frustrated was waiting.” grim future, a time when poetry factory worker; Plato spends his As it turns out, that footage Dickensian London and outer and the Pannonia Film Studio fi- Festival of Los Angeles space, among others. At 160 min- nanced by the Communist gov- screened 18 minutes of early and rose cultivation are banned, time herding oxen. was just a small excerpt from a utes — about three hours, includ- ernment, had become a mecca footage from “The Tragedy of babies are issued numbers rather “The people loved it, ” Bela film that wouldn’t be completed I ing the intermission — the film for many of the top animators, in- Man,” an animated work in than given names, and the des- Bunyik, the festival’s founder, re- until 2011, fitting for an epic that includes one visual spectacle af- cluding Mr. Jankovics. A year lat- progress by the director Marcell iccated corpses of citizens are re- called of that sneak peek. begins at the dawn of creation, ter the next. Each of the 15 sec- er the government fell, forcing Jankovics. In the segment Luci- cycled to make household goods. “‘When’s it coming? When’s it ends with man’s last gasp and in- tions is animated in a different artists and directors to find other style, and cameos abound, from means of financing. Lenin, Stalin and Hitler to Mick- Mr. Jankovics worked a section ey Mouse, Marilyn Monroe and at a time, starting with the short- the Beatles of the “Yellow Sub- est scene, in which Adam trans- marine” era. There are also death forms into a giant robotic space- and carnage on a grand scale: be- ship as he and Lucifer hurtle headings, stabbings, suicides, through the cosmos. As soon as crucifixions, mass shootings, one section was finished, he’d go deaths brought on by sheer ex- about raising money for the next, haustion and so on. “It won’t be a applying for small grants from film everybody will see,” Mr. Jan- organizations like the Hungarian kovics admitted. Motion Picture Foundation. In The full version of “The Trage- the meantime he wrote several dy of Man” will have its Ameri- books on art and mythology, di- can premiere next Sunday, re- rected films and television series, turning to the same festival 16 and served as president of the years after that initial screening Hungarian Cultural Society. and nearly three decades since The film crews he led as the Mr. Jankovics first began work- “Tragedy of Man” director and ing on the film. At the world pre- writer changed substantially miere in Budapest last December over the years, with animators Mr. Jankovics said he told the au- retiring or dying. “The voice of dience that he was happy that he God and Lucifer remained had lived to see this moment. “I through the whole production,” couldn’t say anything more,” he Mr. Jankovics said. “But Adam said in a recent phone interview and Eve grew old, so younger ac- from Budapest “or I would have tors were brought in.” started to cry.” The last bit of money to com- The film is an adaptation of the plete the film came in 2008, when poet Imre Madach’s play of the Mr. Jankovics allowed General same title, which has been trans- Motors to use “Sisyphus” in an lated into 90 languages and is ad for the GMC Yukon Hybrid. considered one of the great The commercial — which com- works of Hungarian literature. pared Sisyphus’ legendary stick- The action takes place over the to-itiveness to that of the vehicle course of one very long dream, as — was broadcast during that Adam, Eve and a chatty Lucifer year’s Super Bowl. visit the world’s great civiliza- “Tragedy” has now played tions at the height of their power, throughout Hungary, where it only to watch as humanity’s no- has been praised by critics, as blest hopes and dreams come to naught. At 15 scenes long, set in 10 different historical periods, the A film’s cameos play can be a beast to stage, let include Stalin, Hitler, alone sit through. “Reading the play is exhausting,” Mr. Jankov- Marilyn Monroe and ics said, “so I think a film is a good solution.” the Beatles. If anyone had dibs on adapting Hungary’s best-known drama well as at festivals in Russia, Ser- into a feature-length animated bia and the Czech Republic. This film, it’s Mr. Jankovics, Hunga- month the film will screen at fes- ry’s best-known living animator. tivals in Poland, Portugal, Arme- In 1976 his film “Sisyphus,” a nia and Canada, in addition to its short-form masterpiece about the American premiere. There are no doomed, boulder-pushing king, plans at the moment for a com- was among the nominees for an mercial release. Academy Award; the next year “It’s a monumental, gigantic his “Kuzdok” (“The Struggle”) opus that Marcell Jankovics cre- won the Palme d’Or for short film ated,” said Marton Orosz, curator at Cannes. of photography and media arts at “In Hungary people know him the Museum of Fine Arts in Bu- in the way they know Walt Dis- dapest. “It’s the film he was pre- ney,” said Paul Morton, who stud- paring for his entire life.” ied Hungarian animation in Bu- Near the end of the film, under dapest while on a Fulbright fel- Earth’s dying sun, one down-on- lowship in 2008. “When I was on his-luck Eskimo asks Adam, the street, and I told people what whom he mistakes for a god, for I was doing, they would immedi- more seals to eat, please, and ately go, ‘Oh, have you talked to fewer humans to share them the great Marcell Jankovics?’” with. After viewing eons of hu- By the time Mr. Jankovics first man misery in a single night, started working on “Tragedy,” in Adam wonders what the point of 1983, he had already directed two full-length films: “Janos Vitez,” all this is, and viewers have to Hungary’s first animated feature, wonder along with him. The film and “Feherlofia,” which stars a ends with the timely return of horse-suckled hero, his two Eve and God and this heavenly brothers and a combative hob- directive: Keep struggling, keep goblin who loves to eat piping-hot striving, no matter how lousy life porridge atop the bellies of his gets. defeated enemies. “I knew pretty It’s hardly a feel-good ending, well that I needed three years to but for Hungarians, at least, it’s a make one movie,” Mr. Jankovics satisfying one. While in Buda- said. “Since this is an extralong pest, Mr. Morton said, he heard a movie, it counts as two, so that’s local woman explain one funda- six years. So I basically spent six mental difference between Hun- years making the movie.” garian stories and American And the other two decades or ones: “She told me, ‘You always so? “The rest of the time,” he end the story with “and they said, “was spent raising funds.” lived happily ever after.” We end Production began in 1988, at our stories, “and they lived hap- the tail end of what is now consid- pily ever after . until they ered the golden age of Hungarian died.”’” Marcell Jankovics spent nearly three decades on his epic that begins at creation and ends with man’s last gasp..

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