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Sunshine (Widescreen)
 
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Sunshine (Widescreen)

Ralph Fiennes (Actor), Rosemary Harris (Actor), István Szabó (Director) | Rated: R (Restricted) | Format: DVD
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)

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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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Customer Reviews

37 Reviews
5 star:
 (17)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (37 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars A must-see for all Ralph Fiennes fans, Mar 13 2007
By 
Syed A. Hassan "Abbas Hassan" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Sunshine (Widescreen) (DVD)
The story traces the history of Jewish-Hungarian family and their travails at every point in the Europe's turbulent past since the WWI. The human immorality of lust and greed and the family's victimization as Jews blends into a gripping story showing how family's fate culminates in a backdrop of the post-war Hungary turning to Communism. The sons (played by Ralph Fiennes) in each generation is a great performance and I think this is a must-see for all Ralph Fiennes fans. A bit longish but still it's worth it. Cinematography is excellent and so is the art direction.
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5.0 out of 5 stars What a fantastic movie!, July 3 2004
By 
M. ravasizadeh "Massi Ravasizadeh" (Andover, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Sunshine (Widescreen) (DVD)
This movie is a must-see!
It is a relativly long movie but you won't feel the length since it is very amusing and it absorbs all your attention so well that you barely notice the passage of time.
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4.0 out of 5 stars GLORIOUS. BUT COULD HAVE BEEN AN EPIC., Mar 12 2004
By 
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Sunshine (Widescreen) (DVD)
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.

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