István Szabó’s Sunshine (1999) and the Third Hungarian Republic
Turning 25 this year, István Szabó’s epic is the perfect summary of the Hungarian 20th century. It is also a great case study on the hopes and failures of the Third Hungarian Republic.
István Szabó is one of Hungary’s most established directors. His filmography includes romantic dramas like Szerelmesfilm (Love film, 1970), period pieces like Redl ezredes (Colonel Redl, 1985) and Mephisto (1981), or an early critique of the Hungarian post-communist transition; Édes Emma, drága Böbe (Dear Emma, Sweet Böbe, 1992). Despite their different subject materials and period settings, there is one overarching theme in all of these films: How do historical events outside one’s control shape the life of the individual? How does the external force of history forge one’s character?
The 1970s and 1980s were the peak of Szabó’s career. But his magnum opus, the film that perhaps most clearly encapsulates the themes the director was grappling with in his entire career, came out in 1999. That film is Sunshine (or A Napfény íze, The Taste of Sunshine in Hungarian).
The film follows three generations of the Jewish-Hungarian Sonnenschein family through three different epochs of Hungarian history. Each main character in every generation, Ignátz, Ádám, and Iván is played by Ralph Fiennes. Clocking in at a mammoth of three hours, the first third of the film takes place in liberal Austria-Hungary where Ignátz aims to embark on a legal career in Budapest amidst antisemitism he faces at the courts. Part two follows the life of his son, Ádám, through the Horthy era. Ádám avoids much of the institutional antisemitism faced by other Hungarian Jews at the time due to his status as an Olympic fencer until the Second World War when he is taken to the front and is brutally killed in a labour camp. Ádám’s son, Iván is taken to the labour camp with him and lives his adult life in socialist Hungary and tries to avenge what happened to his father by joining ÁVH, the communist secret service. However, he eventually becomes disillusioned with socialism and partakes in the 1956 revolution.
The film goes through the key moments of 20th-century Hungary and the struggles Hungarians (and in some cases, specifically Jewish Hungarians) faced under different ideological systems. But Szabó’s (who co-wrote the film with Israel Horovitz) intelligence as a filmmaker comes across in the different relationships his protagonists have with the dominant regimes of their respective eras.
Ignátz, and the Jewish community as a whole, are beneficiaries of the liberal government’s policy of actively advocating Jewish emancipation and the Monarchy’s idea of a united nation with different ethnicities under one ruler. In the film, the system’s tolerant attitude towards the Jews is even directly contrasted with the very real antisemitism of the majority Hungarian population. It is due to the pressure of local Hungarian bureaucrats that Ignátz needs to change his name from Sonnenschein to Sors (meaning “fate” in Hungarian).
Ignátz does not only tolerate the Monarchy and accept that it betrays the ideas of the 1848 revolution, but actively celebrates the system. Due to his tolerant attitude towards all minorities, Francis Joseph is his hero. Meeting him at one point in the film is clearly the greatest honour of Ignátz’s life. Therefore, he is an extremely loyal supporter of the regime out of principle. For example, Ignátz lashes out at his own family members who point out the liberal government’s negligence of the working classes and the existing poverty and dismisses their socialism.
For a while, Ádám, as a successful Olympic fencer, is spared from the worst aspects of 1920-1930s antisemitism. Thus, he does benefit from the Horthy regime, as Ignátz did from the liberal epoch. However, crucially, unlike Ignátz, Ádám is privileged exclusively due to his position within the regime - as an Olympic champion whose success can easily be used to disseminate nationalist propaganda - while people like him are being actively discriminated against throughout the country. He tolerates the regime but does so entirely because of selfish reasons.
Iván believes in socialism largely because he wants to avenge his father and the sins of the Horthy era. He actively participates in the establishment of socialism, while he gradually witnesses its show trials and the abuse of power - which he also actively participates in. As a result, he turns against the system and starts to actively fight it, even partaking in the 1956 uprising for which he is imprisoned. Ádám thus is first an enthusiastic supporter of the regime, then does what neither his grandfather nor his father did before him: rebels.
Iván is later freed, changes his name back to Sonnenschein, throws out all of the family’s belongings and, after a time jump to 1990, walks away in the Budapest sunshine. The struggles are over and he can start a new life at the end of history, unburdened by the tragedies of the past. These last scenes encapsulate everything liberal Hungarians were hoping for from the birth of the Third Hungarian Republic in 1990. As such, the film and the contemporary discourse surrounding it is a useful relic of its time.
The film was reviewed favourably internationally but had a mixed critical reception domestically (despite this, it was and still is overwhelmingly popular among the general population). Several reviewers at the time criticised Sunshine for how it Hollywoodifies and dumbs down certain features of Hungarian history as well as the lack of depth in the main characters.
It is difficult to dispute the former point, however the latter criticism overlooks creative intentions. The main characters of the story are not Ignátz, Ádám, and Iván as individuals. The main character of the film is the Hungarian nation, symbolised by Ignátz, Ádám, and Iván in different periods. Critics stated that the three generations are only frictions of a character each and lack depth. But that is a conscious choice: it is through stories like theirs that Hungarian society had become what it was by the end of the 20th century, and the character development of the Hungarian nation can only be understood if one interprets the stories of these three different generations as a whole. Ignátz, Ádám, and Iván are thus not three separate characters but one. The fact that they are all portrayed by the same actor is to further emphasise this point.
Upon its release, a major topic of contention among critics and the wider Hungarian intelligentsia was regarding the interpretation of the film. Several of Hungary’s intellectual giants partook in the discourse about Sunshine on a scale that has not been replicated in relation to any Hungarian film ever since. Those writing about the film included legendary philosopher Ágnes Heller, former dissident Miklós Haraszti, philosopher Iván Vitányi, historian István Deák, and essayist Péter György. The public discourse which mostly took place on the pages of the influential liberal magazine Élet és Irodalom asked: is Sunshine a film about celebrating liberal individualism or is it specifically about the failure of Jewish assimilation to the wider Hungarian society?
The essayist Péter György and the historian István Deák argued for the latter. György even criticised the film for not depicting the experiences of the Hungarian majority society as well as for its negative portrayal of Jewish assimilation.
Haraszti, Heller, and Vitányi disputed György’s claims and argued that Sunshine is primarily a film about staying true to oneself as an individual. All argued that both Hungary’s Jewish and non-Jewish populations can relate to the film and the fate of the Sonnenschein/Sors family.
Those who interpret Sunshine to be a film about the failure of Jewish assimilation into Hungarian society bring Ádám’s death as an example. He converted to Christianity and assimilated into Hungarian society but was still murdered on the front for being a Jew, goes the argument. But crucially Ádám did not only die but did so while standing up for himself (something, which up until that point in the film, he completely failed to do). His death is heroic and a source of patriotic inspiration, not a cautionary tale.
As Ágnes Heller rightly notes, Ádám’s murder in a World War Two labour camp by antisemites is the emotional high point of the film and it is the point at which his character morally triumphs. During the scene, Ádám keeps repeating that he is “Ádám Sors, Hungary’s fencing champion, Olympic gold medalist.” He therefore not only dies because of his Jewish heritage but also because he refuses to deny his Hungarianness. With the portrayal of Ádám’s death, István Szabó makes it clear that in his mind, Hungarian-Jewish history is Hungarian history. Hardly a total rejection of Jewish assimilation.
Additionally, knowing the historical context, the collective memory of the events the film depicts, and Szabó’s filmography, there’s further evidence that Szabó does not only want to talk about the fate of Jewish Hungarians in the 20th century but the fate of all Hungarians.
For example, in one of Szabó’s other films, Redl ezredes (1985), the titular character has several similarities with Ignátz Sonnenschein. He is loyal to the Monarchy and admires Francis Joseph personally because the emperor embraced the multiethnic nature of the land. Redl, just like Ignátz, benefits from the ruler’s propagation of multiculturalism, especially because the people around him are more nationalistic. However, Redl is not Jewish but Ruthenian. In Szabó’s filmography, there is virtually no difference between the depiction of the Jewish experience of the Monarchy and that of any other minority.
It is also noteworthy that Ádám does not die in a concentration camp in Germany but does so in a labour camp on the Eastern Front. His death is inevitably tied to antisemitism, however, as Ágnes Heller points out, he does not die in the Holocaust. The location of his death is where several non-Jewish (and Jewish) Hungarians died and is remembered as a personal and collective tragedy of Hungarians regardless of ethnic background.
Astonishingly, in his review, Péter György also wrote that the depiction of Andor Knorr, a communist official who is sentenced under a show trial for “Zionism,” disrespects the non-Jewish population of the country as Hungarian communism had victims regardless of ethnic heritage. This could be a valid argument, but György seems to have forgotten the point of show trials.
Andor Knorr is not sentenced for actually being a Zionist, or Jewish. The point of a show trial is that it is based on made-up accusations. Knorr could have been sentenced for anything, such as telling an inappropriate joke, or being a class traitor, or being an imperialist - these would have had just as much truth and validity in them as the Zionism accusations. The real reason Knorr was sentenced was simply because others were eyeing his position and wanted to get rid of him. Just like with all other political trials under communism, the Zionism accusation is a lie. By focusing so much on the content of the accusation, it is as if György believed that the sentencing even had a grain of truth - which has never been the case with show trials under any regime.
Another clue to the true nature of Sunshine’s individualistic and, at its core, liberal message which perfectly fits the zeitgeist of the Third Hungarian Republic, comes in the final scenes of the film. When getting rid of the family belongings, the secret recipe book of the Sonnenschein family, to which the family’s wealth can be attributed, is also thrown out. Yes, Iván does change back his name to Sonnenschein but he leaves his family legacy behind. He becomes true to himself as an individual. The positive example within his family he follows is of one particular Sonnenschein: his grandmother, Valerie. As Iván states in a voiceover in the final few lines of the film:
“I remembered the recipe book we had lost and suddenly realised that the family secret was not to be found on its pages. It was preserved by my grandmother, the only one in our family who had the gift of breathing freely.”
But Sunshine not only shows us the hopes and dreams of the Third Hungarian Republic; aspects of the film and how it was made also offer us a clue to the Republic’s structural problems and why it collapsed in 2010.
By far the greatest flaw of Sunshine is that it was made for an international audience, mostly with British actors (though there are some Anglo-Hungarians like Rachel Weisz in leading roles and some iconic Hungarian actors in minor supporting roles). Essentially, the film does not speak the language of the people it is about. Let alone language, the mannerisms of all actors are also quintessentially British. This is not only a problem on a philosophical level; several scenes in the film are actively hindered by it.
For example, Ignátz’s father enthusiastically instructs the band at his wedding to play Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt, a famous Hungarian folk song. The song is an important and personal one for the Sonnenschein/Sors family throughout the film and the family members start singing it to each other at different points.
Or they would start singing that is, only they can’t because none of the actors speak Hungarian and actually know the words, resulting in absurd scenes such as one towards the end when Valerie starts aggressively humming the tune of the song to Iván for several seconds. Such scenes come across as completely off and break the immersion in the story fairly often. Another example of this is when Ádám wins the Olympics with the Hungarian team, and the film makes sure to play the entirety of the Hungarian national anthem like they normally would at the Olympics. Unprecedented levels of patriotism ensue! Or they would ensue that is, however our main cast is sadly not singing the national anthem. They only stare at the flag while the extras are singing in the background. Is it perhaps on purpose to show that Ádám is contemplating his privilege as an Olympic champion and is unable to be proud of his country due to its discrimination against Jewish people? Or is it just because Ralph Fiennes does not know the lyrics to the Hungarian national anthem? We’ll never know.
Szabó clearly does not care about the implications of language too much in his films in general. Several of his films, including Édes Emma, drága Böbe and Redl ezredes contain foreign actors in leading roles whose dialogue was dubbed in post-production. This is, by far, the greatest flaw in an otherwise brilliant director’s filmography. In this sense, Sunshine is no different to some of Szabó’s other films.
However, that Szabó decided to shoot the whole film, which due to its story and scale is arguably the most important Hungarian film of the 20th century, in English with British actors tells us something more about the culture of the Third Hungarian Republic. Hungarians were seemingly so keen to tell their story to the West that they forgot that the most important story in modern Hungarian history primarily needs to be told to Hungarians and not the wider world. The mixed Hungarian but overwhelmingly positive Western critical reception of the film can also be attributed to the fact that Sunshine was tailored to the tastes of Western audiences.
This mirrors a narrative (primarily heard from the contemporary Hungarian right but also accepted to an extent by others) regarding the Hungarian nineties and oughts. This narrative claims that the era’s elites were primarily concerned with proving themselves to the expectations of the West and not necessarily to those of the Hungarian public. The elites of the time would deny this of course, and the idea could rightfully be considered unfair on some of them. However, it is emblematic that the film that perhaps most clearly articulates how the founders of the Third Hungarian Republic viewed the country’s 20th century and symbolised everything the Republic wanted to be, can be argued to have made the exact same mistake.
What’s even more emblematic of the Third Hungarian Republic is that filming Sunshine in English was not a creative decision. Simply put, it is due to the dire state of the Hungarian film industry in the 1990s. The post-change-of-regime period is considered to be one of the worst periods in the history of Hungarian film. A well-established system of state support for the film industry was entirely destroyed without a competent funding body being established in its place. The same thing happened to football, television, and some other fields of culture after the change of regime in Hungary.
In the years before making Sunshine, Szabó worked on theatre, opera, and TV projects as he was so disappointed with the state of Hungarian film funding. Szabó (who initially envisioned Sunshine to be a TV miniseries) pitched the project with a 400-page script to Hungaro-Canadian producer Robert Lantos who convinced him to shorten the script and, crucially, to make it an English-language film.
Szabó had to obtain funding for the film from international donors and therefore had to make it in English. Thus, the idea to film Sunshine in English with international actors and market it primarily to an international audience was a direct consequence of the structural problems of Hungarian democracy.
Sunshine not only tells the story of the tragic fate of Hungary under the Monarchy, the Horthy regime, or socialism. How it was made, who it is for, and how it was received also tell the tragic story of an era Iván Sors was so optimistic about when he walked away in the Budapest sunshine in 1990; the Third Hungarian Republic.
Ábel Bede