A touch of sunshine

Movie
German title	A touch of sunshine
Original title	The Taste of Sunshine
Country of production	Hungary , Germany , Austria , Canada
original language	English
Publishing year	1999
length	173 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	István Szabó
script	István Szabó ; Israel Horovitz
production	András Hámori ; Robert Lantos
music	Maurice Jarre
camera	Lajos Koltai
cut	Michel Arcand ; Dominique Fortin
occupation
	Ralph Fiennes : Ignác Sonnenschein / Ádám Sors / Iván Sors; Rosemary Harris : Valéria Sors; Rachel Weisz : Gréta; Jennifer Ehle : Valéria Sunshine; Deborah Kara Unger : Karola Kovács; Molly Parker : Hannah Wippler; James Frain : Gustav Sunshine; David de Keyser : Manó Sunshine; John Neville : Gustav Sors; Miriam Margolyes : Pink Sunshine; William Hurt : Andor Knorr; Rüdiger Vogler : General Jakofalvy; Mark Strong : István Sors; Bill Paterson : Attorney General; Trevor Peacock : General Kope; Hanns Zischler : Baron Felix Margittay; Katja Studt : Kató; Mari Törőcsik : Kató older; Péter Andorai : Anselmi; Balázs Hantos : Áron sunshine; Kathleen Gati : Josefa Sunshine; Vilmos Kun : Rabbi Betelheim; Jácint Juhász : Mr. Hackl; Flóra Kádár : Mrs. Hackl;

A touch of sunshine , reference title: Sunshine - A touch of sunshine (original title: The Taste of Sunshine ) is a feature film by director István Szabó from 1999. It is a 4-country production ( Hungary , Germany , Canada , Austria ) where u. a. The following companies were involved: Alliance Atlantis , Serendipity Point Films , Kinowelt , Bavarian Film and TV Fund , Eurimages , The Movie Network , Telefilm Canada , Vienna Film Financing Fund , ORF , Channel Four Films . It premiered on September 13, 1999 at the Toronto Film Festival . It was first seen in German cinemas on January 27, 2000 and in the United States only from the beginning of June.

action

First generation - great grandfather

In 1848 Tsar Nicholas I put down the Hungarian Revolution . Austria then treated Hungary like a conquered province . However, after the Austro-Prussian War (1866) has weakened Austria in balancing the independence of Hungary recognize.

When his small distillery explodes in a Hungarian village, Áron Sonnenschein is killed, and his son Manó moves to Budapest with his mother Josefa and his wife Rosa . With the help of a recipe book from his father's destroyed distillery, Manó builds a successful family business. He produces and sells the herbal liqueur "Sunshine", which turns out to be a real gold mine. The family's wealth increases. She now belongs to the upper middle class , but her Jewish origins distinguish her from the others.

Second generation - grandfather

Manó and Rosa Sonnenschein have two sons, Ignác and Gustav. The couple also adopted their orphaned niece Valéria. The children do not want to take over the father's flourishing business. After Manó notices that Ignác and Valéria have fallen in love, a conversation between father and son ensues. Manó (Emmanuel) confesses to his older son that his father had forbidden him to marry his beloved cousin Sarah Bettelheim and that he now expects the same behavior from Ignác. This promises to withdraw from his cousin Valeria and goes to Vienna to law study. After he left, Valéria wrote him many letters, but Ignác did not answer a single one. One day Valéria stands in the door of his room with Ignác's landlady. The two continue their relationship, which remains even after Ignác's graduation and starting his career as a judge .

Ignác is popular and continues to seek recognition, but his Jewish name prevents him from advancing. On the advice of the court president, Ignác, Valéria and Gustav give up their family names and take the Hungarian-sounding name Sors (Latin and Hungarian fate). Valéria becomes pregnant. Ignác now confesses to her and asks his father for her hand. Shocked, his mother Rosa passed out from the chair. His father, however, gives the couple his blessing after all. So nothing stands in the way of the wedding.

Ignác is successful as a judge. This is how influential citizens become aware of him. Some of these gentlemen are trying to win him over to politics and make him a member of the Hungarian government. However, Valéria appeals to his common sense and tries to convince him in turn that he should not sacrifice his career for a corrupt government. Ignác then declines the promising offer. At the turn of the century, Valerie gave birth to two sons, István and Ádam.

Ignác learns that his brother Gustav is on a government black list with the names of opposition socialists . There is a dispute between the lawyer loyal to the emperor and the committed opponent of the kuk government. The assassination attempt in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 ushered in the First World War . Manó Sonnenschein died on the same day as the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef I (1916). The Danube Monarchy falls apart.

When Ignác returns from the war, Valéria accuses him of becoming a callous person. She wants a divorce. In his desperation, Ignác can think of nothing better than to throw her on the bed and rape her to convince her otherwise. When he realizes that Valéria is completely indifferent to him, he lets go of her. After the communists came to power under Béla Kun in 1919, fraternal relationships were reversed. Ignác is now on the black list. He is arrested and placed under house arrest. After only a few months, the Soviet Republic is overthrown and Gustav has to flee into exile in France . Discouraged by the social changes of the post-war period, Ignác Sors dies before his mother, and shortly afterwards she too.

Third generation - father

Ádám Sors learns to fence . He is very skilled, but in order to develop his talent further, he has to go to the fencing school of the Hungarian officer corps. As was the case with his father's career, admission is only possible indirectly. His patron, Baron Felix Margittay, advises him to convert to Christianity . Ádám wins the national championships and attracts the attention of General Jakofalvy.

In Christian evening school he meets Hannah and takes her heart by storm. Eventually he wed Hannah and István with Gréta, but she only married him to be near Ádám. One day she confesses to her brother-in-law that she loves him. Ádám does not want to betray his brother, but some time later the two begin a secret relationship.

In 1936 Ádám wins the gold medal in fencing at the Summer Olympics in Berlin . A compatriot who had emigrated to the USA speaks to him in a Berlin museum . He accuses Ádám of fighting for a dictatorial government . Ádám indignantly rejects the proposal to emigrate to the USA as well.

In the meantime, Admiral Nikolaus von Horthy has built up an autocratic regime , sympathizes with Hitler and Mussolini and introduces discriminatory laws against Jews . István, Gréta, Ádám, Hannah and Valéria are initially convinced that they are exceptional cases, as they consider themselves absolutely loyal to the state and well assimilated. Your assumption turns out to be a mistake. Hannah is killed in an extermination camp. Valéria can hide. Ádám and his only son Iván are sent to a labor camp.

Winter has fallen, the prisoners have lined up outdoors. When the commandant asked where he came from, Ádám replied that he was a Hungarian officer, Hungarian fencing master and gold medalist and received a beating. Although he can hardly stand on his feet, Ádám does not acknowledge his Jewish origins. The officers force him to strip naked. Iván has to watch helplessly as his father is knocked unconscious and kicked. Ádám is handcuffed, hung from a branch and splashed with cold water until his body is surrounded by a thick layer of ice. Five days before the Red Army marched in in April 1945, István, Gréta and their son were taken from their apartment by Hungarian National Socialists and shot.

Motifs from Ádám's life are taken from the biography of the Hungarian saber fencer and Olympic champion Endre Kabos .

Fourth generation - Iván

Gustav returned from exile to his stepsister Valéria after the Second World War . A little later, her grandson Iván arrives there and reports on the death of his father. Iván joins the communists and hunts fascist war criminals for the Hungarian secret service , because this gives him the opportunity to take revenge on his father's murderers. Thanks to his great dedication, he was promoted to major .

Karola Kovács also holds the rank of intelligence major. Although she is married and has children, she tries to seduce Iván. His superior Andor Knorr, a Jew who survived Auschwitz , warns him about Karola. He tells him that her husband was a member of the Resistance during the war in France . Iván doesn’t care, because he fell in love with her. He is ordered to uncover an alleged Zionist conspiracy against the Hungarian government, of which Andor Knorr is said to be the leader. The interrogation is unsuccessful, because Iván finds himself in a conflict between his friendship with Knorr and his loyalty to the regime. Finally, the general transfers the case to another intelligence officer.

Gustav dies in a hospital and Karola ends the relationship with Iván. She confesses to him that she is pregnant, but cannot say whether the child is his or her husband's. After Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, Knorr, who had recently been beaten to death , is celebrated as a hero. Iván gives the eulogy and accuses himself. He resigns from the Hungarian secret police.

During the Hungarian popular uprising in 1956 , Iván encouraged the demonstrators in the streets of Budapest not to let the Soviet tanks stop them. The revolution fails. He is arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. After three years, he was released early on parole . He gets back the belongings he had kept from that time, but he notices that his great-grandfather Áron's pocket watch is missing.

In the meantime, a strange family of five has been quartered in the house of his grandmother Valéria. After the death of his grandmother, Iván begins clearing out the rooms. The recipe book of his great-grandfather, which had been in vain since Manó's death, falls at his feet. But he ignores it, and the book ends up in the garbage press of the clearing squad. He is interested in a letter from his grandmother's estate. In this letter, Iván's great-grandfather exhorts his son Ignác to stay true to the principles of his Jewish family in order to be successful in life. Iván then decides to confess to the history of his family and no longer to disguise his Jewish origins with the name Sors. He goes to the district court to take the name Sunshine again.

Reviews

The film received mostly positive reviews in the US press, with Rotten Tomatoes ' criticism rate was 73%.

Roger Ebert writes about the film that it is telling the story of a family from a single country, and at the same time it is the protocol of a century in which one brilliant political idea followed another, each with a promise of salvation, and each only brought misery. Ralph Fiennes, who embodies three different personalities in the film, calls the performance of Ralph Fiennes “astonishing” ( uncanny ) and Szabo's three-hour epic an exciting historical synopsis ( thrilling historical sweep ).

AO Scott of the New York Times compares “Sunshine” with films like Visconti's “ Leopard ” and Bertolucci's “ 1900 ”, which would have unfolded an epic panorama of a time of upheaval while the story of the Sunshine family unfolds - because of all the screaming and hacking ( for all the shouting and panting ) - feel more like a collage of ideas, events and metaphors than something experienced. However, the longer the film runs, the more it shows sympathy for those involved. He approaches his subject with so much wisdom that one can forget the clumsy approach at the beginning of the film, the haphazard insertion of black and white pictures from the newsreel , and the hyperventilating sexual exuberance - which apparently weighs on the family like a curse.

The lexicon of international films wrote that it was "a historical arc of pictures staged with great effort, which is often lost in the decorative and stereotypical". The main characters are "depicted with far less depth than in the director's brilliant trilogy from the 1980s on identity and adaptation."