Angyali üdvözlet
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: András Jeles
FEATURING: Péter Bocsor, Júlia Mérő, Eszter Gyalog
PLOT: After Adam and Eve get kicked out of Eden, Adam calls out Lucifer: “You promised me I’d know everything!” So, Lucifer gives him a dream, and Adam lives different lives through history: a knight in Byzantium, Johannes Kepler in Prague, Georges Danton in Paris, and a Victorian dude. Everywhere he goes, it’s the same—violence, betrayal, and all kinds of chaos, with Lucifer watching it all, smug as ever.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: András Jeles’ The Annunciation might just be one of the quirkiest films in cinema history. Almost every role in this movie is played by children. And not just regular mischievous kids, but little angels who suddenly start talking about Homoiousianism—and do it as well as any theologian. Adam and Eve are portrayed by youths whose innocence is as obvious as it is paradoxical. I mean, how weird is it to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden in disgrace when you haven’t even lost all your baby teeth? Oh, and Lucifer, the dark dandy himself? You won’t believe it—a little girl plays him.
COMMENTS: Lucifer is beyond livid because the newly created humans, whom “Adonai” cherishes like a fool, are, according to Lucifer, a bunch of gullible simpletons incapable of anything truly elevated or even aesthetically useful. He hands Adam and Eve the infamous apple, crimson as shame. And as in the Old Testament, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and find themselves whisked away into the innards of existence.
Still processing what just happened, Adam recalls the promise of his Dark Friend:
“You, Shameless Light of Darkness, said that I would understand everything!”
“Well, then,” Lucifer smirks with the swagger of a fallen angel, “here you go.”
At this point, a quick detour is in order.
This cinematic chaos is based on a play by Imre Madách, a Hungarian sage and prophet. “Tragedy of Man,” written in 1859 and first published in 1861, was staged for the first time on September 21, 1883, at the National Theatre in Budapest. Due to its scale, philosophical depth, and complex staging (time-traveling, changing sets, and a shitload of characters), it took more than 20 years to hit the stage. When it was finally performed, it swooped in like a bomb. The audience gushed about it. Today, “The Tragedy of Man” is studied in Hungarian schools and universities much like Tolstoy’s War and Peace is in Russia. The play breathes the air of Milton’s Paradise Lost, but it’s a throwback with its own quirky twist.
The 19th century, under the influence of Hegel, brought a strange fascination with “The Philosophy of History”, wherein everything was explained as if following a recipe: the historical process supposedly had a direction, laws, and a goal—as if history were a soup, and if you added the right ingredients, you’d get progress. By the 20th century, it all went wild—with all kinds of “formational,” “civilizational,” “world-system” schools, and, of course, the proud “Annales School.” Soviet schoolkids were taught from the Marxist perspective that humanity’s history was a journey from savagery through slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism straight into a bright future where, even in the foggy Andromeda galaxy, Communism would be built.
The satirist Madách snapped at all this gooey Hegelian grandeur in his tragedy. Adam, a child of dust, wanders through these ages and civilizations—like a faceless extra in a Russian novel—never finding peace. In the film, Adam and Eve aren’t just the first humans with fig leaves. They’re relentless travelers across chronological chasms, changing identities each century. One moment, Adam’s a knight named Tancred in Constantinople, the next, he’s Georges Danton in Paris fighting for liberté, égalité, and all that jazz. Eve remains Adam’s paramour, sometimes wistful, sometimes fatalistic, sometimes a tragic beauty. Adam initially believes in history’s newest great idea with the zeal of a convert, but after living through its consequences, he inevitably blurts out, “It’s a lie!” and, as always, ends up broke as a joke.
Their journey isn’t just through countries and epochs; it’s a pilgrimage through “meta-civilizations” directly borrowed from books by Toynbee and Nikolay Danilevsky. In the film, there are 6 civilizations, while in the play, there are 8 (8 would have made it a TV series, not a movie).
The characters (not just Adam and Eve) look young on the outside, but are old in spirit. Their speech is like incense smoke, slowly but surely enveloping the mind. Here you’ve got Heraclitus declaring, “Everything flows!” before adding, “Everything changes!” Then there’s Kepler, poor guy, who places the Sun at the center of the Universe and—sadly—goes loony. Then Georges Danton surrounded by Jacobins and aristocrats. Jeles serves all of this up to the audience like candy with mustard: human history is nothing but a whole hog of screw-ups.
Why did Jeles cast almost all the roles with kids? To show the boundless naivety and serene stupidity of ideologies that lead humanity into confusion and delusion. Finally, after all this historical suffering, Adam is horrified to the point of nausea. He decides, enough with these historical torments: maybe it’s time to leap headfirst into oblivion. At this dramatic moment, as always happens in well-made tragedies, Eve sidesteps like a chicken on a hot tin roof—smoothly—using a well-argued point in a philosopher’s debate. With a knowing blush, she softly, but with great significance, tells Adam:
“You know, I’m in a bit of an interesting situation.”
And what happens next? Oh, the miracle of ontological transformation. Just a moment ago, Adam was contemplating a fall from the cliff of existence, but now, he stands tall, chest puffed out, and exclaims (if not aloud, then certainly with great inner heroism): “No! I’ll stay!” And the Lord, sitting on His Universal Throne, speaks. From the Heavens, His manifesto rings out — tragicomic, yet solemn: “Mondottam, ember: küzdj és bízva bízzál!” (Hungarian for: “I told you, man: fight—and, with hope, trust!”).
Lucifer, humiliated, grunts, puffs, and fades into the shadows. Because in this wondrous film, the real power isn’t in reason, will, or even the plot—it’s in love and hope, embodied by the gentle but resolute Eve.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was suggested by kay [way back in 2011], who said it had “lots of surreal scenes and the fact that all the actors are children make[s] it weirder.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here).