SUNSET (2018) – Review

Here’s something for those few who don’t want to see (or can’t get tickets to) the big superhero slugfest that’s on most of this country’s movie screens. It’s a drama set in a turbulent time in another country. It’s full of lush intricate costumes and lavish estates because it’s set near the end of a genteel, refined era, just before the dawning of the coarse, mechanized, violent modern age. Perhaps that’s the reason for the English title: SUNSET.

After a title card telling us about the 1913 rivalry between Budapest and Vienna, the camera is locked on the listless face of an aristocratic young woman, perhaps in her early twenties being served at a clothes store. After trying on several fancy decorative hats, she announces that she’s actually there in search of a job. The flustered floor manager Zelma (Evelin Dobos) takes her to the supervisor’s office. He, Mr. Brill (Vlad Ivanov) is shocked to see that the applicant (who has arrived with several hat designs) is Irisz Leiter (Juli Jakab) namesake of the store’s original owners (Leiter’s is quite the exclusive ladies’ shop, about to celebrate 30 years), the only survivor of the fire that claimed her parents, leading to the purchase of the place by Brill. Irisz wants no special treatment, only the chance to escape her foster home and work at her family’s business. Brill cannot offer a job but insists she stay overnight at a nearby boarding house for the shop’s staff. Late that night, she is awakened by an intruder, a crazed stableman named Gaspar (Levente Molnar) who mumbles that she barely resembles her brother, before the landlord chases him away. Irisz was not aware of any sibling. Brill dismisses the news, but Irisz makes this quest her number one priority. Eventually, she is hired by the shop, but her evenings are spent in pursuit of this “phantom brother”. As her search leads her into a dangerous part of town Irisz learns that he is a wanted man who may be organizing a revolt against the upper classes. Can she find him before those deadly plans are carried out?

In his follow-up to the Oscar-winning SON OF SAUL director and co-writer (along with Clara Royer and Matthieu Taponier) utilizes several themes and techniques from that earlier work but without the impact or an equally compelling story. For much of the film’s running time, the camera is either trained on Irisz or seems to be just over the shoulder almost giving us a point-of-view (POV) from the character’s perspective. While it worked for Saul in that film, here it just gives an extra bit of disorientation and proves frustrating and distracting during the story’s few action sequences. We wonder, “What’s that noise? Where is it coming from? Stay on that person. Why are we looking there?”. It doesn’t help that the main character is so passive. Jakab seems to have the same dead-eyed stare through the whole languid two-plus hours, not even crying out as she’s nearly ravaged twice. It’s a flawed directorial choice that distances us from her character and the drama. The filmmaker may be trying to make a statement about the class system, but its themes are diluted by a third act that invokes the twist of FIGHT CLUB (amongst other superior works). Those unfamiliar with Hungary in the early 20th century will have many questions. Are the angry lower-class mobs inspired by the Russian revolt? Are these events directly connected to the start of the first World War? Ultimately we’re tasked with the “heavy lifting” due to the muddled script and storytelling style. The production artists truly put us in that time period (horse carriages and early autos), but it’s not enough to make SUNSET enlightening to anyone other than Eastern European history buffs and millinery fans (the hats are pretty wild, though).

1 Out of 5

SUNSET opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas