Neil Sonnekus
european art movie of the week
If, having been born into one of the worst periods of human history, fascism, and growing up during another, communism, was no fun in Eastern Europe, then it most certainly gave Hungarian director Istvan Szabo a profound sense of history and film.
Sunshine, all three hours of it, paints a canvas about and as large as the 20th century. We see three generations of Sonnenschein men, all played by Ralph Fiennes, living through World Wars I and II, the 1956 uprising and the final fall of communism. During that arc these men frequently change their identities to accommodate, by force or choice, the tides of history.
At one stage they even change their name to Sors, which has the same meaning and spelling in Latin and Hungarian. It means Destiny. This is that kind of film, with a cast of names like Jennifer Ehle, who plays the only constant during the various upheavals. It also signals a welcome return for a compelling- as-ever William Hurt in a small but pivotal role.
Sunshine is not boring for one second, but it might not appeal to a post-20th century, MTV audience, and it doesn’t help that, because of what is happening in the Middle East right now, global sympathy has shifted against Israel.
But beyond the theme of identity is that of survival, and a subtle but constant point Szabo makes is that no tribe, whether Afrikaans, Jewish or Xhosa, has ever done so on a staple diet of humility.