Sunset

Seen at the Capitol Theatre, Melbourne

Cecil says: Sunset was not what I was expecting. I knew it was set in Budapest  before the first world war so it would have an end-of-empire feel to it, and I don’t really think I wanted a Merchant Ivory style take on the period, but it was a bit disappointing not to have any magnificent street or river scapes that made it clear it was filmed in Budapest itself.

In fact by the end of the film, I wasn’t even sure that the whole thing wasn’t filmed in some studio or other somewhere in Europe.

We saw it at the magnificently refurbished Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, along with at least 500 others, as part of the wonderful Melbourne International Film Festival.

The new interior there is extraordinary, with amazing LED lights a 21^st century echo of the lighting system they had when the Capitol first opened in the silent movie era in the 1920s. The sound system is also superb, muffling the noise of conversation among the audience but making what happened on the screen perfectly audible. I have to say, though, that I have never been a fan of surround sound, so the voices behind the protagonist coming out of speakers high up towards the back of the auditorium just doesn’t work for me in a cinema, especially when I sit at the back and they come somewhere to my left rather than behind.

And sound is somehow vital to this movie. We focus almost exclusively on Irisz, the daughter of the Leiters, who ran an exclusive hat shop in Budapest, but who died when she was an infant in a blaze that destroyed the premises. But so much of the dialogue – especially from the men around her – comes in grunts or dark, whispered words into ears, whether hers or others around her.

It’s a slightly weird effect along with the long silent looks at her face, with eyes gazing out into nowhere, but giving us the viewer no real clue as to what she might be thinking or feeling.

In fact, by the end of the film, although Irisz is the focus throughout (and it’s for over two hours, by the way), we don’t truly know much about her or what makes her tick. Or even what she truly is.

The final scene in the WW1 trenches is gloomy and miserable, but then she appears, staring again but wordless, like a ghost. And I was left wondering if the whole point was that she was a spirit, never really there but appearing when terrible things are about to unfold.

When a film is this full of symbolism, it can be hard to get inside the story (so unlike Merchant Ivory). There is a storyline, as she returns to Budapest trying to get a job at her parents’ old shop, as the new owner works towards its 30^th anniversary (in his hands?), and we know we are building towards revelations about her family and about the nobility and its slow fall towards oblivion in this part of Europe.

I enjoyed the film but it did feel rather long, and if it hadn’t been at the Capitol, I might well have drifted off in some of the slower parts.

***

Bea says: I am writing this review some time after Cecil did his, and I have to say what I remember most of this experience is the wonderful Capitol Theatre, rather than the film, which is a fairly slow moving, languid period piece with a dreamlike ending.  I don't mind this genre, but the story didn't really stay with me at all, and I had to reread Cecil's review to remember it at all.

**.5