YMMV / Marcell Jankovics

• All Animation Is Disney: Hated Disneyesque art and the schmaltzy kitsch of Walt Disney cartoons, and one of his career's main objectives was to present new ways of creating animation to both studios and audiences. Still didn't keep him from earning the moniker "Hungarian Walt Disney".
• Animation Age Ghetto: None of his main works are meant for kids and he's spent the majority of his life fighting against stereotyping animation as children's stuff. Yet, his films are still often shown to kids — he claimed he doesn't mind it, though, and was actually fond of finding out what youngsters think of his works. In fact, he was amazed that kids seemed to "get" Son of the White Horse's dreamlike world better than adult viewers.
• Award Snub: 1982 marked the first time the Hungarian Film Committee, who had otherwise hated animation, actually nominated a pair of animated movies for their "Film of the Year" award — Attila Dargay's massively successful crowd-pleaser Vuk the Little Fox and Jankovics's Son of the White Mare. Vuk won out and White Mare remained sort of ignored for years.
• Awesome Art: After his more "traditionally cartoony" styled early shorts, each of his projects developed their own unique flair and most of them are considered standout artistic achievements. It says something that his most conventional looking animated film was the one that copied Yellow Submarine.
• Cult Classic: The closest he ever got to widespread mainstream attention was with Johnny Corncob, and even that was later outperformed by more easily digestible and less experimental animated films made by his colleagues. He remained a mostly cult director and animator ever since, which he was perfectly fine with.
• Genius Bonus: A more than basic level understanding of Eurasian history, mythology, astrology, rituals, politics, Hungarian folk iconography and terminology can come in handy to understand his films.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Son of the White Mare is a neglected film in Hungary that tanked upon release, harshly divided viewers and disappointed the studio execs. Other animated films of the time, like Vuk the Little Fox, Cat City, Treasure of Swamp Castle or Lúdas Matyi not only outperformed it, they became pillars of national culture and are hailed as mainstream masterpieces to this day. In the West, though, White Mare might just be Hungary's most famous and highly praised animated film among cartoon historians and enthusiasts, while the others are barely recognized, if not outright bashed. The US-based Arbelos Films even helped remaster it into 4K for a 2020-2021 international release. Notably, this remaster was given a fancy Blu-ray release packed full of bonus content in the US and German markets. It didn't merit such a prestigious treatment in Hungary, where it only got a cheap, bargain bin-style DVD with none of the bonus material, not even the Jankovics documentary/interview that was filmed for the remaster.
• Tough Act to Follow: His first feature film, Johnny Corncob, was his most successful movie in his home, his second, Son of the White Horse, only brought in half as many viewers, and his last, The Tragedy of Man, only amassed one fiftieth. Most of his output was simply too "avant-garde" for audiences, who wanted less artistic and more conventional family films and comedies — and the same held true for a few other experimental films put out by the studio. Yet, on an international scale, White Mare is by far his best known work and only one of the two officially released in the United States (Johnny Corncob saw a limited video-on-demand release alongside White Mare).
• Values Dissonance: Since his works aim to stay true to their source material, ranging from old Paganism to Christianity, ancient nomadic tradition and hundred year old folklore, he doesn't shy away from depictions of nudity or crass sexuality, he's got a hefty dose of old-school nationalism, plus a lot of his cartoons came from a socially sheltered and uneasy era (late 20th century East Bloc during oppressive Communism), westerners or some progressives might find elements of his art disagreeable.
• Vindicated by History: He was always respected but viewers, studio bosses and Communist representatives gravitated toward less artistic and more marketable productions, which lead to Jankovics getting sidelined. Once his films became more accessible to the West and to new generations, he became Hungary's most recognized animation director among international animation fans and scholars. In fact, he has even said it took the worldwide audience about 40 years of "catching up" to appreciate Son of the White Mare.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Most of his movies and shorts are dense with symbolism or some deep reflection on the human condition and our ancient mythology, but good luck trying to pay attention to anything other than the visuals on your first watch. Even if the scenes are deliberately grotesque, unnerving or stomach-churning, they ooze artistry.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: He never considered his cartoons and movies to be children's material, but he was often eager to hear what kids had to say about them. Even Hungarian television ratings have been rather inconsistent, with Son of the White Mare's strictest age rating for example being 6+ despite its abundance of sexual imagery. Internationally, most if his works would be unquestionably categorized as adult animation for their violence, nudity and sexual references, with The Tragedy of Man at the top for its blatant sex scenes, heaps of nudity and general disturbing imagery. Yet since so many of Jankovics's films and series were based on works taught in Hungarian schools, they would often be shown to kids and teenagers for educational purposes. He also commented that making content for all age groups is better than drawing a clear line between children and adults material, and argued that kids should not be sheltered from subjects like sexuality or brutal violence, but instead exposed to them gradually from a young age.

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