The Annunciation (1984)

Best movie of this year hands down!

You won't be disappointed!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I am afraid that nobody will understand this movie unless he or she doesn't know one of the greatest Hungarian dramatic play of the XIXth century: The Tragedy of Man, written by Imre Madách. The plot: after the loss of the garden of Eden, Lucifer, the demon of Denial shows to Adam and Eve the different ages of mankind, to prove them that there is no reason for them to live. In their dream they live for a while in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, in medieval Byzantium, in the revolutionary Paris, etc. This is a romantic and pessimistic vision -- with a strange, optimistic ending. The director of this movie had a great idea: he has chosen not grown up actors and actresses, but little boys and girls, so the plot is even more complex, more poetic and more visionary. A beautiful movie to watch -- but if you don't know the drama of Madách, perhaps you won't understand everything. Anyway, it is worth the time!

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.

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.

This is a very well acted play (brought to film, then to video), however, it is not likely that the majority of movie watchers will take pleasure in it. The beginning is biblical fact, and then it becomes the writers idea. It is based upon the book of Genesis and Ecclesiastes, with a touch of the New Testament. In the beginning it is Biblical Fact (Genesis)-> Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, tempted by Satan to eat of the fruit that gives the knowledge of good and evil. HOWEVER, after they are sent from Eden, the story becomes the imagination of the writer! When I first watched this movie, I shook my head and thought it was a heartless, worthless effort to depress people. I just wanted it to end. BUT the ending summed it all up for me and I appreciated the entire movie for it! I do not know why the entire movie is performed by children (between 8 and 12 years of age), but I do know that they did an outstanding job!!! Yes, it is STRANGE, but isn't that what makes a movie unique!?