Sunshine
by István Szabó
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Deborah Kara Unger, Jennifer Ehle, Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary HarrisDirector: István Szabó
Writer: István Szabó
Producer: Andras Hamori
Producer: Danny Krausz
Producer: Gabriella Prekop
Producer: Jonathan Debin
Producer: Julia Rosenberg
Writer: Israel Horovitz
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 181 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Sunshine
Movie Review: Excellent multi-generational family drama set in Hungary
Summary: 5 Stars
I had actually viewed "Sunshine" many years ago, and watched it again last night. Even after all these years, it still captured my imagination and proved to be an engaging movie.
"Sunshine" is directed by Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo [who also directed "Mephisto"] and is a 3 hour epic drama of the rise and fall of a Hungarian Jewish family through three generations. The storytelling is made unique by the casting of one actor, Ralph Fiennes as the protagonist in each generation.In the beginning,the Sonnenschein [literally means sunshine]family is a wealthy Hungarian Jewish family, thanks to a secret family recipe for a tonic and the family is made up of parents, two sons and an adopted daughter. One of the sons grows up to be Ralph Fiennes and the 'daughter' grows up to be Jennifer Ehle. They are in love and despite the disapproval of the parents, get married. Ralph Fiennes' character is an up and coming lawyer, and to rise up in the ranks, he realises that he needs to change his family name to something more Hungarian, and chooses the name Szors. His brother and 'sister'/lover also adopt the same family name. But the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire puts an end to the liberal policies that favored the rise of Jewish people in government, and when the Nazis come to power, the Jews in Hungary begin to feel even more persecuted.
This time round, Ralph Fiennes portrays one of the Sonnenschein heirs who is also a world-class fencing champion. His mother [played by Jennifer Ehle when younger, and Rosemary Harris when older] is now a known photographer and Fiennes faces anti-Semitism on a larger scale than faced by his father, and he decides to convert to Roman Catholicism in order to assimilate. Too late he realises that the Nazis still consider him and his family members as Jews and the Holocaust exacts its' toll on the Sonnenscheines/Szors'.
After WW II, the surviving son [also played by Ralph Fiennes] returns from Auschwitz, troubled and bent on vengeance and is encouraged to join the communist regime to hunt down fascists that persecuted Jews during the war. Though he initially takes to this role with much enthusiasm, he eventually realises that anti-Semitism is still prevalent in Hungary and he needs to choose a path that will truly grant him freedom from his painful past and lead to a brighter, hope-filled future.
The political upheaval in Hungary was well-portrayed in the film, though I felt the director was rather too ambitious and had to cram these historical changes into a 3 hour movie. The Holocaust itself is allocated a brief period, though the scenes of torture at the concentration camp was graphic enough to remain embedded in my memory for a while.
There is also quite a bit of romance in this movie, and the sex scenes are quite graphic [lots of nudity], but I felt they did not detract from the storyline. Ralph Fiennes in each of his character portrayals, plays a man who is emotionally restrained and it is only in sex, that he feels able to 'release' his tensions.
The cinematography is beautiful and the attention to period details is impressive. I liked the score and on the whole felt that "Sunshine" was a well-made multi-generational family drama, exploring the experiences of a Hungarian Jewish family during the glory days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, through the dark days of the Holocaust and finally through the rise and fall of communism.
Summary of Sunshine
Although Sunshine was made by a Hungarian, István Szabó, and deals with the history of Hungary as refracted through three generations of a Jewish-Hungarian family, you might be more inclined to give it three hours of your own life if you approach it as a David Lean movie in spirit. It is an English-language picture, and Maurice Jarre's music recalls his score for Doctor Zhivago. Szabó emulates Lean's intimate-epic style of merging the sweep of history with the crystalline detailing of individual lives, so that the shape of destiny is glimpsed through personal moments that feel at once evanescent and eternal. His lighting cameraman, Lajos Koltai, is one of the handful of cinematographers equal to capturing these moments in lapidary images--cinematic sunshine of the highest order."Sunshine" is a literal translation of Sonnenschein, the family name of the central characters. And "destiny" is one meaning of Sors, the name three Sonnenschein offspring choose for themselves to better assimilate as subjects of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Two are brothers, Ignatz (Ralph Fiennes) and Gustave (James Frain); their sister (by adoption) Valerie (Jennifer Ehle) is really their cousin. Both men love her, and Ignatz rocks the ultratraditional family by taking her as his wife. Nevertheless, the Sonnenscheins and the Sors enter upon the 20th century in loving solidarity, grateful to live under a liberal and tolerant regime. That's all swept away by the Great War, the rise of Nazism, and its replacement, the new fascism of Stalinist Communism. Valerie survives them all--though she's played later on by Rosemary Harris, Ehle's own mother. For his part--or parts--Ralph Fiennes goes on to embody two later generations of Sonnenschein/Sors men, the proudly patriotic Adam and his son, the rudderless Ivan, whose guilt over being a compliant prisoner at Auschwitz leads him to buy into the passionate puritanism of the Stalinist purges. Fiennes rises to the awesome challenge of creating three utterly distinct characters who all share the same congenital weaknesses and aching potential for greatness.
This is a film of considerable beauty and sometimes shattering power. Even three hours is not enough to do justice to all the characters, all the wrenching turnarounds of history and political allegiance and rectitude. But the film is never less than gripping, and as an essay on "family values," it's well-nigh definitive. --Richard T. Jameson
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