Sunshine, directed by Istvan Szabo, is an award winning co-production between Austria, Germany, Canada and Hungary. An historical film, the story weaves through 3 generations of a Jewish family in Hungary from the turn of the 20th century to the communist regime post 1956 examining issues of family, torn loyalty and the effects of our personal and national history upon our lives.
The film follows the lives of 3 generations of the Sonnenshein family, all played by Ralph Fiennes, through the intense upheavals of the period. Ignatz Sonnenshein is a political conservative loyal to the Emperor even changing his name from the too Jewish Sonnenshein from which the film takes it's name-being the German for sunshine-to the more Hungarian Sors in order to forward his career. He falls in love with and eventually marries his cousin Valerie who has been raised as his sister. Valerie provides a constant throughout the film as a lover,
mother and then grandmother.
Their son Adam grows up to become a famous fencer who wins an olympic gold despite difficulties surrounding his Jewish roots-he converts to Roman Catholicism to join the fencing club thus losing more of his family roots. These events take place in the 30s and demonstrate the situation many Jewish families found themselves in during this time-listening to the radio all the family (want to) believe that they are exempt from being sent to the concentration camps on a list of exceptions given by the Nazis giving a look at the complexities of assimilation and multiple loyalties. Eventually Adam and his son are sent to Auschwitz, where Adam is killed for refusing to call himself a dirty Jew,whilst other members of the family go into hiding.
The third and final section of the film follows the life of Adam's son Ivan who survives the concentration camp and arrives home tofind his grandmother Valerie and great-uncle are also still alive. Enticed to join the rising communists by the promise that he can revenge the injustice done tohimself an others by the Nazis, Ivan becomes embroiled in a regime that is also abusive and anti-semitic.
The film ends with Ivan managing to extract himself from the communist party and both him and his grandmother take back the original family name of Sonnenschein symbolically reclaiming their heritage from all the attempts to destroy it over the previous century.
The film gives a broad overview of the history of Hungary in the 20th century and also incorporates some real historical specifics such as that of a famous Jewish fencer winning at the olympics. I think that Szabo had an ambitious aim for one film to cover such a changing history and society and ultimately I found it lacking a certain something. Parts of the story seemed too contrived to be real and detract from the story. Also Sunshine is around 3 hours long which is necessary to cover the 3 mens' lives in any detail but I felt fidgety for the last half hour or so-yet I still felt that I was only getting to know one character when it moved onto the next generation thus a difficult issue to resolve. Some parts of the film dragged and then others felt like they were rushed through and should have been far more in depth giving a sense of unevenness to the movie as a whole.
Casting Ralph Fiennes as all three Sonnenschein/Sors men was a good move as it provides a feeling of continuity through the generations and backs up the idea that the actions of your family and effect of your heritage have a powerful influence on your life. Fiennes himself manages to play the three men without making the film more about himself than the characters.
Overall I did find parts of this film interesting and it demonstrates the fiery and problematic history of Hungary over the past century as well as the broader difficulty of heritage and family history in a changing and hostile world. There are powerful and moving scenes and beautiful shots of Budapest but the film failed to fully keep my attention as it progressed and had parts where it was quite dry. At the end I was left feeling a little underwhelmed and felt that whilst the idea was good the actual film could have been better.
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This sprawling family saga follows a Hungarian-Jewish family across three generations, and ... more
stars Ralph Fiennes as the father, the son, and the grandson in three distinctly different roles. As a Europudding vehicle for Fiennes and a top-drawer cast (inc...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
This sprawling family saga follows a Hungarian-Jewish family across three generations, and ... more
stars Ralph Fiennes as the father, the son, and the grandson in three distinctly different roles. As a Europudding vehicle for Fiennes and a top-drawer cast (inc...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Ralph Fiennes (The End Of The Affair, The English Patient) stars in this epic story of a ... more
family that rise above their humble origins to positions of wealth and power only to fall victim to the events which defined Europe during the 20th century
![Sunshine [DVD] [2000]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78537319.jpg "Sunshine [DVD] [2000]")
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