The devil has always been pretty, but he's never been as pretty as he is now, Károly Eperjes told Origo, according to whom the current spiritual-ideological processes inevitably lead to cataclysm.
The Kossuth Award-winning actor's first film direction, Hungarian Passion, will be shown in the near future, the film commemorates the persecution of Christians by communism that claimed more than ten thousand victims. The creators also sent a compilation of the most important scenes, cut to seven minutes, with English subtitles, to Pope Francis.
The basis of the script of the Magyar passion was the play of his old friend, Father Péter Várnai, and the radio play made from it.
According to the director, it is one of the greatest tragedies in our history. During the persecution of Christians in the 1950s, the sacred cream of the Hungarian intelligentsia was essentially cut in half: more than ten thousand were victims of terror, many were murdered, imprisoned or disabled, chased away. In a sound play or a stage work, it is not possible to complete a theme both vertically and horizontally, as in a film, which has a much wider technical toolbox with cutting, make-up, and changing locations. In other words, this difficult period can be presented much more spectacularly on motion pictures. You can't just tell it verbally, because today's youth understand better from pictures than from actual content.
Károly Eperjes: "Today's youth understands images better than actual content" PHOTO: ATTILA POLYÁK - ORIGO
According to Eperjes, there are two types of existence: God's law and self-law. God's law is the universal value system. Self-righteousness is egoism, which always leads to some other ism. Be it hedonism, minimalism, nationalism, globalism, nihilism. Now relativism is strongest; recent popes have all said that humanity's greatest pain is to suffer from the temptation of relativism.
This is a constant battle, if we turn the pages of the Bible, we can read it in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. But now I feel like we're heading towards the end. As János Pilinszky wrote: "Perhaps I stand in the middle myself. Maybe it's evening. Maybe dusk. One thing's for sure: it's getting late." Our task is therefore to try to belong to the universal origin, where the heart of vertical and horizontal existence pulsates.
People need faith, but we are not looking for it in the right place. As Christians, we are responsible for showing the true power of faith in an inadequate quality. As XVI. Pope Benedict said, the twenty-first century will either be Eucharistic or not. It's a strong sentence, but I think it's true.
In any case, we have a lot of backlogs in the field of historical films, we have not covered many of the turning points of Hungarian history before. It would be important to have a good film, for example, about St. István and IV. Also about Béla, I would like to process their story in the future. And that is why, among others, I am happy about the television series about János Hunyadi, which is being prepared with the support of the National Film Institute. It is very important to restore our national identity, not only to enjoy life in the present, but to feed on the past for a good future.
Source and full source: origo.hu
Featured image: Facebook/Hungarian passion
