Sunshine
Hungary/Germany/Canada/Austria 1999
Reviewed by Julian Graffy
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
In the mid 19th century, on the death of his father, the Hungarian Jew Emmanuel Sonnenschein leaves his village and moves to Budapest, where he builds up a business selling his family's "Sunshine Tonic", marries and has two sons, Ignatz and Gustave, and also brings up his brother's daughter, Valerie. All three children change their name to the Hungarian name Sors to assist assimilation. Ignatz studies law and marries Valerie despite parental opposition. They have two sons, Istvan and Adam. Gustave, a doctor, gets involved in the socialist opposition, while Ignatz becomes a judge.
The family's life is thrown into turmoil by World War I, the collapse of the monarchy and the short-lived Communist republic, under which Gustave becomes a high-ranking official and Ignatz is arrested. With the coming of the right-wing Horthy regime Gustave flees to France. In 1930, Ignatz dies, leaving Valerie head of the family. Their son Adam, a brilliant fencer, converts to Catholicism to join the elite army fencing team and wins the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Both Adam and Istvan marry and have sons. But their assimilation into Hungarian society cannot save them from the ghetto and the Nazi death camps. Istvan and his family are shot in Budapest. Adam and his son Ivan are taken to a camp where Adam is tortured to death.
After World War II, Ivan returns to the Budapest house where his grandmother has survived and where his great-uncle Gustave has returned to enter politics. Ivan becomes a Communist Party official, but begins to doubt the regime when he is forced to interrogate his Jewish boss Knorr. After Stalin's death he makes an impassioned speech at the funeral of the rehabilitated Knorr, and leads the rebels in the 1956 revolution. The re-imposition of Soviet power brings his imprisonment. After his release, Valerie dies. Ivan changes his name back to Sonnenschein. In a brief contemporary coda Ivan walks through free Budapest.
Review
Sunshine records the trajectory of a Hungarian-Jewish family over four generations as they move from their village to Budapest, into commerce and government service of various kinds and finally into dissidence and a rediscovered sense of personal identity. Each generation, in its different historical circumstances, copes with a recurrent series of moral dilemmas. The unease of the outsider leads to an excessive desire for acceptance, but acceptance entails compromise, and for these Jews a readiness to renounce both their name and their religion. Compromise brings a seductive closeness to power and heady worldly success, but also involves hypocrisy, shame and self-delusion, laced with a constant fear of the loss of what is gained at such cost.
That the road of these lives is always the same is effectively suggested by having Ralph Fiennes play three generations: the son, Ignatz; the grandson, Adam; and the great-grandson, Ivan. It is the life of the second generation in monarchist Budapest that the film examines most amply, and where the connections between family, society and nation are most carefully delineated. With the story of the dull Adam its grasp becomes much less certain, partly because of a decision to cover the inter-war years chiefly through his passion for fencing (alas, one fencing bout is very like another), but also because director István Szabó's illustrative strategies are already becoming apparent. The final part, the post-war study of Ivan, is more securely rooted in politics and history, but by this point the film, like the viewer, is flagging and the post-1956 period is extremely skimped.
Sunshine is a film of epic scope, and it makes its material manageable by finding patterns in history. There are patterns in the life of the country, in its successive thraldom to three powerful neighbours, Austria, Germany and Russia. In each period power corrupts and leads to vengeful violence, and state anti-Semitism is ever present. There are patterns in the lives of men. Each generation of Sonnenscheins has two sons, and in each generation the central character played by Fiennes is drawn out of weakness to 'forbidden' women.
There are also patterns between the lives of individuals and the nation, for both men and country are sucked into a maelstrom of compromise and self-delusion, a connection underlined by the coincidence of key family events with those of history. But history brings change as well as repetition, and a reading of it through such rigorously applied templates is ultimately unsatisfying. The oversimplifications are accentuated by an over-insistent use of symbolic objects. The recipe for the family's Sunshine tonic, the great-grandfather's watch, broken crockery, a photograph of the young Valerie recur with an eventually dismaying regularity. This excessive desire to guide the viewer is also reflected in the film's dialogue, which is strewn with sententious abstractions, and in the interpretive voiceover provided by Ivan.
Szabó has visited these historical sites before: the decline of the Empire in Colonel Redl, World War I in Hanussen, the Nazi period in Mephisto, World War II in Confidence and so on. In this sense, and also in its examination of individual fates in societies in crisis, Sunshine is a summation of the concerns of a long and brilliant career. And yet each of the earlier films, with its narrower focus, could inevitably achieve greater density and persuasiveness, greater urgency. All the key ingredients of the 20th-century Central European recipe - the two world wars, the Berlin Olympics, the concentration camps, the Stalin cult and the purges, the rise and fall of communism - are assembled here. But the resulting dish is slightly stolid. Near the end of our epic journey we learn, "the purpose of life is... life itself", and the sense of anticlimax is palpable.
Credits
- Director
- István Szabó
- Producers
- Robert Lantos
- András Hámori
- Screenplay
- István Szabó
- Israel Horovitz
- Story
- István Szabó
- Director of Photography
- Lajos Koltai
- Editors
- Michel Arcand
- Dominique Fortin
- Production Designer
- Attila F. Kovács
- Music/Music Conductor
- Maurice Jarre
- ©ISL Film Kft/Kinowelt Filmproduction GmbH/Screenventures XXXIX Productions Ltd (an Alliance Atlantis company)/DOR Film Produktiongesellschaft m.b.H.
- Production Companies
- Alliance Atlantis and Serendipity Point Films in association with Kinowelt present a Robert Lantos production
- Made with the financial participation of Film Four
- Financially supported by the Bavarian Film and TV Fund (FilmFernsehFonds Bayern) FFF/the Wiener FilmFinanzierungsfonds WFF
- Supported by Eurimages
- Produced with the participation of The Movie Network TMN/Telefilm Canada
- Produced with the participation of ORF/InterCom/TV2 Hungary/Hungarian Motion Picture Fund
- Executive Producers
- Rainer Kölmel
- Jonathan Debin
- Co-producers
- Danny Krausz
- Lajos Óvári
- Associate Producers
- Julia Rosenberg
- Gabriella Prekop
- Head of Production
- Alliance Atlantis:
- Lacia Kornylo
- Production Supervisor
- Berlin Additional Unit/
Kinowelt: - Dorothea Schmid
- Production Co-ordinators
- Ágota Kovács
- Edit Nagy
- Production Managers
- Lajos Óvári
- György Sánta
- Berlin Additional Unit:
- Ralph Brosche
- Vienna Additional Unit:
- Stephanie Wagner
- Unit Manager
- Gábor Téni
- Location Managers
- Imre Sárközi
- Tamás Guba
- Vienna Additional Unit:
- Andreas Kahri
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Lori Waters
- Germany Supervisor:
- Christina Jahn
- Canada Co-ordinator:
- Deanna Strong
- Production Consultant
- Eva Banhidi
- Assistant Directors
- Gábor Gajdos
- Mariann Ungi
- Kerric MacDonald
- Script Supervisors
- Gabriella Winkler
- Eva Banhidi
- Casting
- Director:
- Leo Davis
- North America:
- Deirdre Bowen
- Hungary Additional:
- Mária Kulcsár
- ADR Voices:
- Brendan Donnison
- Lyps Inc
- Script Consultant
- Gabriella Prekop
- Camera Operator
- Balázs Bélafalvy
- Steadicam Operators
- Tamás P. Nyerges
- Berlin Additional Unit:
- Jörg Widmer
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Ferenc Ormos
- Mechanical Engineers
- János Berki
- Gábor Kiszelly
- Pyrotechnicians
- Gyula Krasnyánszky
- Gábor Csákovits
- Freezing Effects
- Daniel Parker
- Editing Technical Consultant
- Pierre Guérin
- Art Director
- Zsuzsanna Borvendég
- Key Set Decorator
- Tommy Vögel
- Set Decorators
- Christian Eder
- Attila Köves
- Miklós Molnár
- Josef Riehs
- Stefan Würzl
- Costume Designer
- Györgyi Szakács
- Wardrobe Master
- Zsuzsanna Stenger
- Make-up Supervisor
- Erzsébet Forgács
- Make-up Artist
- Judit Endrényi
- Hair Supervisor
- Erzsébet Rácz
- Hairstylists
- Ildikó Makk
- Judit Halász
- Main Title Design
- Gamma Studios
- William Cameron
- Robin Len
- Titles/Opticals
- Blow Up Film (Munich)
- Michael Otto
- Martin Zwanzger
- Orchestra
- Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchestra Berlin
- Piano/Organ
- Holger Groschopp
- Zymbal
- Mártha Fábian
- Solo Soprano
- Catherine Bott
- Choir
- Metro Voices
- Music Co-ordinator
- Doris Lütz
- Music Editor
- Dina Eaton
- Recordists
- Shawn Murphy
- Jonathan Allen
- Mixer
- Shawn Murphy
- Soundtrack
- "Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt" performed by (1) Balázs Hantos, (2) László Molnár, János Suki, Sándor Ürmös, András Puporka, Pál Járóka; "Kecskebéka felmászott..." performed by László Molnár, János Suki, Sándor Ürmös, András Puporka, Pál Járóka;, "Egy cica, két cica" by Dankó, performed by László Molnár, János Suki, Sándor Ürmös, András Puporka, Pál Járóka; "Suliko", "Dunnyuska" performed by Miklós Tabányi; "Fantasia for Piano, Four Hands in F-Minor" by Franz Schubert, performed by Márton Terts, Zsolt Czetner; "Ezzel a kis dallal", "Minden kislány" by Denas Buday, arranged by István Bergendy, performed by Gábor Skerlecz, Szabolcs Ducsai, Attila Simon, Gábor Kollmann, Pál Járóka, Béla Ferge; "Szép vagy, gyönyörü vagy" by Ottó Vincze, performed by Vám és Pénzügyörség Zenekara; "Lesz, lesz, lesz..." by Szerdahelyi, performed by Vám és Pénzügyörség Zenekara; "Radetzky Marsch" by Strauss, performed by Budapest Concert Orchestra; "National Anthem" by Ferenc Erkel, Kölcsey, performed by Vám és Pénzügyörség Zenekara; "Stalin Cantata" by A.V. Alexandrov, Iljuskin, arranged by Frigyes Hidas, István Raics, performed by Szabó Zsolt Orchestra and Choir, BM Szimfonikus Zenekar, Trikolore Kft; "Worker's Funeral March" by Alexis Archangelsky, performed by Szabó Zsolt Choir; "Jewish Wedding Song" performed by Emil Tóth; "Traditional Jewish Funeral Song" performed by László Fekete; "Egmont Overture - Opus 84" by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchestra Berlin; "Blue Danube", "Kaiser Waltz" by Strauss, arranged by Patrick Russ, performed by Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn, arranged by Patrick Russ, performed by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchestra Berlin; "Huzzad, csak huzzad" by Korbay, performed by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchestra Berlin; "Veni creator spiritu" arranged by Patrick Russ, performed by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchestra Berlin; "Please God May We Always Go on Singing" by Maurice Jarre, István Szabó, performed by Metro Voices
- Sound Mixer
- Glen Gauthier
- Supervising Re-recording Engineer
- Daniel Pellerin
- Re-recording Engineers
- Peter Kelly
- Keith Elliott
- Brad Thornton
- Elius Caruso
- Darcey Kite
- Andrew Tay
- Operators
- Brent MacLeod
- Mark Zsifkovits
- Mike Woroniuk
- Digital Transfers
- Jeff Chesher
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Fred Brennan
- Dialogue Editors
- Wayne Swingle
- Richard Cadger
- Supervising Sound Effects Editor
- Jane Tattersall
- Sound Effects Editors
- David McCallum
- Roderick Deogrades
- Mark Shnuriwsky
- ADR
- Co-ordination:
- Vanessa Baker
- Lyps Inc
- Recordists:
- Andrew Tay
- Greg Shim
- Mixers:
- Alan Sallabank
- Paul Carr
- Ted Swanscott
- Editors:
- Sue Conley
- Alison Clark
- Janice Ierulli
- Foley
- Artists:
- Andy Malcolm
- Alicia Stevenson
- Sharon Zupancic
- Mixers:
- Andrew Tay
- Ron Mellegers
- Location Mixer:
- Tony Van Den Akker
- Fencing Instructor
- László Szepesi
- Fencing Advisers
- George Lavorato
- Nikkolas Lavorato
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- György Kivés
- Original Translation
- Paul Gottlieb
- Cast
- Ralph Fiennes
- Ignatz Sonnenschein/
Adam Sors/Ivan Sors - Ignatz Sonnenschein/
- Rosemary Harris
- Valerie Sors
- Rachel Weisz
- Greta Sors
- Jennifer Ehle
- Valerie Sonnenschein
- Deborah Kara Unger
- Major Carole Kovacs
- Molly Parker
- Hannah Wippler
- James Frain
- Gustave Sonnenschein
- David de Keyser
- Emmanuel Sonnenschein
- John Neville
- Gustave Sors
- Miriam Margolyes
- Rose Sonnenschein
- Rüdiger Vogler
- General Jakofalvy
- Mark Strong
- Istvan Sors
- Bill Paterson
- minister of justice
- Trevor Peacock
- Comrade General Kope
- Hanns Zischler
- Baron Margittay
- Mari Töröcsik
- Katja Studt
- Kato
- Péter Andorai
- Anselmi
- Péter Halász
- Wild Duck
- William Hurt
- Andor Knorr
- Ádám László
- Emmanuel aged 12
- Balázs Hantos
- Aaron Sonnenschein
- Kathleen Gati
- Josefa Sonnenschein
- Vilmos Kun
- Rabbi Bettelheim
- Jácint Juhász
- Mr Hackl
- Flóra Kádár
- Mrs Hackl
- Kati Sólyom
- landlady in Vienna
- Joachim Bissmeier
- Dr Emil Vitak
- Tamás Fodor
- notary
- Tamás Raj
- rabbi at wedding
- Dr Zoltán Bognár
- doctor 1
- Attila Löte
- Count Forgach
- Sándor Simó
- doctor 2
- Frederick Treves
- emperor
- István Hirtling
- Doctor Lanyi
- Zoltán Gera
- man at synagogue
- András Fekete
- footman
- Bálint Trunkó
- Istvan aged 18
- János Nemes
- Adam aged 17
- Tamás Juranics
- commander of Lenin boys
- András Stohl
- red guard
- Tamás Keresztes
- Bence Kotány
- boys
- Zsolt László
- Lugosy
- Gábor Mádi Szabó
- priest at conversion
- István Szilágyi
- Hungler
- László Gálfi
- Rossa
- Zoltán Seress
- Tersikovsky
- István Bubik
- Saray
- Eszter Ónodi
- secretary at officer's club
- Sándor Dánffy
- policeman
- Buddy Elias
- Mr Brenner
- Károly Mécs
- defense secretary
- Ádám Rajhona
- caretaker
- Péter Takács
- Stefano Sarto
- László Szepesi
- Olympic judge
- János Kulka
- Molnar
- János Nemes
- Ivan aged 16
- Lajos Kovács
- military police in camp
- Gábor Máté
- Rosner
- Israel Horovitz
- poet
- Andrea Fullajtár
- Agota Hofer
- György Kézdy
- outraged man
- Tamás Jordán
- Sommer
- István Fonyó
- warehouse guard
- József Fonyó
- prison sergeant
- Frigyes Hollósi
- Mr Ledniczky
- Ila Schütz
- Mrs Ledniczky
- János Vészi
- doctor 3
- Ica Gurnik
- woman in hospital
- éva Igó
- policewoman
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Alliance Releasing (UK)
- 16,198 feet
- 179 minutes 59 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour