Sunshine
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Movie Reviews of Sunshine
Movie Review: Really I'd give this three and a half
Summary: 4 Stars
Sunshine is a fantistically made, beautifully acted, and stunningly filmed movie. This maybe one of the most enchanting visual film experiences I've had in a long time. The landscape is amazing and is filmed to perfection, especially in the first of the three vignettes. The photography crew and the director all have amazing artistic eyes; they make the imagery carry the flick. In addition to its mesmerizing visual qualities, Sunshine is very well performed. While Fiennes is clearly the star and the person the movie successfully relies on, the supporting cast does more than hold its own. The dialogue, for the most part, is well written, though some of the voice overs are a little choppy.The most impressive part about both the direction and the writing is how well and seamlessly they deal with some very difficult themes. Sunshine includes commentary on anti-seminitism, assimilation, individuality and political upheaval, amongst some other more minor themes. These are all clearly difficult topics for any artist to work on without ending heavy handed. Sunshine does just that; I never felt assaulted or preached to. That is a true testiment to the film makers.
But despite all of the this, the film's character development is quite flawed. All of the characters in the first third of the movie feel real, like human beings, like people with true personalities and motivations. But as the film progresses, the characters begin to fade, perhaps in the interests of the plot and perhaps to keep a slow-paced movie moving. Either way, this is a mistake. The female characters in particular begin to feel like stereotypes; the love affairs stop being developed until the final third when Fiennes' romance with Deborah Unger (Highlander 3) is completely unexplained. Even Fiennes' characters (especially in the final third--until the last couple of scenes) start to seem a little less real, a little harder to accept. (This is why I will say that Fiennes' performance was brilliant; despite underdeveloped characters, he left me believing in his actions.) This left me questioning the plot as well as the characters. In a film written from character and dominated by its performers that is a difficult flaw to overcome.
With that said, in the end Sunshine succeeds and is worth viewing. Just understand it isn't perfect.
Movie Review: Don't let the length scare you
Summary: 4 Stars
SUNSHINE is a film about 3 generations of Hungarian-Jewish family and the trials and tribulations that consume them during some of Europe's darkest years--two world wars and more political and social upheavel than I can begin to imagine. SUNSHINE is an historically ambitious film; sadly, however, the character development was the main sacrifice.Ralph Fiennes portrays 3 different generations of the Sonnenschein family--Ignatz, Adam, and Ivan. The film's distinct partion into 3 different generations is one reason the great length of this film needn't hinder viewers--it's easy to take a break as soon as one sees Ralph morph into a different character.
Beginning with Ignatz, the family's strong Jewish name (Sonnenschein, translated to "sunshine") causes problems. As a young lawyer, Ignatz convinces the family to adopt the name Sors to better their chances of assimilating into the upper echelon of Hungarian society. What follows is a very rapid peek into more than 50 years of Hungarian history as experienced by the Sors family. Though the film is narrated by Ivan, the third and final Sors man we meet, it is Valerie who is the only constant, and whose character is strongest. Raised by her aunt and uncle, the parents of Ignatz and his brother Gustav, she causes much family controversy when she seduces Ignatz, becomes pregnant, and entices him to marry her. Nonetheless, she remains the backbone of the family while the men get carried away with various personal and political ambitions--she is also the only woman in the family to survive the Holocaust. My advice to to watch Valerie closely, because her saga, though not a focus of the film, is every bit as compelling and perhaps more indicative of the suffering endured by real people.
The acting in this film is acceptable. Fiennes is merely good; the one truly spectacular performance was certainly Rosemary Harris' portrayal of the aging Valerie.
This isn't a bad film. It's very audience-friendly in spite of its great length--the storyline is never difficult to follow. But it's nothing life-altering or profound. Rent, don't buy.
Movie Review: GLORIOUS. BUT COULD HAVE BEEN AN EPIC.
Summary: 4 Stars
Can't remember the last time I sat through a movie for a full 3 hours, but Sunshine had me riveted. What a glorious message of love and joy subordinating almost every other pursuit in our lives. We follow the travails of a Hungarian family through three generations -- and three political/ideological regimes. The first forty minutes are replete with their own elaborate costume sets and gorgeous locales of Budapest. The second and the third generations depicted find themselves smack in the middle of the Holocaust and the follow-up Stalinisque regime. As the Sonnenchiens (the Sunshine family) live through these times with a great loss of life and blood, there're also invaluable lessons to be learnt.
I felt the movie did not sufficiently capitalize on the emotions between men and women except for the first Sonnenchiens. Instead, there's a lot of unnecessary nudity. I'd be stupid to mind seeing Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) and Deborah Kara Unger (Crash) in ecstasy but it got to be almost redundant because the man was the same, Ralph Fiennes playing a different generation. The music for such an epic could have and probably should have been much more memorable, it was just any generic symphony you'd expect from a romanticized epic-mode film.
But these are petty quibbles. Like other movies of its kind, e.g., "House of Spirits" or "American History X", Sunshine certainly has its faults, but its messages about tolerance, humanity, and redemption are absolutely glorious.
For a 3 hour film, the DVD could surely have done a lot better by breaking the movie into Sors I, Sors II and Sors III sections. It is still a very worthy rental especially if you care about period peieces, political ideas, Ralph Fiennes, or Hungary.
Movie Review: What's In A Name?
Summary: 4 Stars
This 1999 film directed by Istvan Szabo, although three hours long, has a lot going for it. Set in Hungary the movie covers three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family, the Sonnenscheins. In the late 19th Century, Ignatz; his brother Gustave and his adopted sister Hannah; who is his natural cousin and whom he marries, change their names to "Sors" in order to "assimilate" into Hungarian society. Ignatz's son Adam even converts to Roman Catholicism and wins a medal in fencing in the 1936 Olympics. After silently witnessing his father die at the hands of the Nazis, the third generation Sonnenschein/Sors son Ivan attempts to avenge his father's death by joining Stalin's Communist Party.
Ralph Fiennes (lately in "The Constant Gardener") plays all three of the Ignantz/Adam/Ivan characters through three generations and does it admirably. The young Hannah is played by Jennifer Ehle; the older Hannah by Rosemary Harris, the mother of Ehle in real life. William Hurt plays Ivan's friend Knorr. Both the score and filming are beautifully done. Many of the war and concentration camp scenes are shot in black and white.
The sad theme is easily stated. In the eyes of oppressors it matters not if you change your name or not. If you choose to hate a whole nation of people because of who they are, nothing will stop you. Even though the film is all about the awfulness of anti-Semitism, there is sunshine here in the resiliant character Hannah who "breathed freely" and always looked for the beautiful to photograph.
Even through three hours long, this film is well worth your time, both for the all-to-relevant theme and the fine acting.
Movie Review: take my wife please
Summary: 4 Stars
A lighthearted romp through Hungarian history, "Sunshine" follows the trials and tribulations of three generations of the Sonnenshein family. Ralph Feinnes, in great comic form here, plays all three roles: Grampa, Pops and Junior. While the director was obviously thinking of structuring this movie along the lines of Alec Guinness's great "Kind Hearts and Coronets," in which Guinness played (I think) seven roles, many times "Sunshine" seems to have more in common with an Eddie Murphy film like "The Klumps." Be that as it may, the laughs keep coming when the recipe for the fabled health drink, which has brought the family fame and fortune, becomes lost. Add a few crazy women as love interests (including Deborah Kara Unger who seems ready to reprise her role in "Crash" here) and you've got the kind of film Mel Brooks used to make before "Blazing Saddles." "Sunshine" also has its serious side, as it is set against the backdrop of WWII and Stalin's pogroms. Still, in the tradition of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" and Jerry Lewis's "The Day the Clown Cried," the serious undercurrent never gets in the way of some inspired sight gags, fabulous one-liners (listen carefully during the "pass the salt sequence") and general silliness.