User Reviews

Sunset, just as Son of Saul, is a hard pill to swallow. It uses a similar visual technique and style as Nemes' debut film, it is very slow, it doesn't have a crystal-clear interpretation. Nevertheless, it is an expression of cinema as a form of art.

Seeing Sunset clarifies which are the recurring elements of Nemes' style, and which were specific to his debut film. Do not expect to see any wide scenery shot of late-Belle Epoque Budapest. During much of the film there are mainly close ups of the lead character, and the surrounding action is left out of focus, except when the lead looks at something, thus maintaining his point of view throughout most of the film. Photography is stunning throughout the film, there are several clever uses of windows, focus, composition (an example being the shot of the lead, Irisz, sitting in a stagecoach with the outside road visible on the left of the screen that you can see here on imdb) and many long takes.

There is little dialogue throughout the film (and I'd say that 1/3 of it is various characters telling the lead she should leave), and the plot is very confusing because of that: much of the backstory is intentionally omitted or just mentioned, so that some motives of the conflict between various characters remain concealed.

The film is set in 1913 not because of historical events (everything that happens in the film is fiction) but for allegorical reasons: the film's subject is the end of an era in European history, the beginning of a period of bloodshed, and also the downfall of the Imperial regimes that were led by nobility. During all of this, Irisz stoically (much like Saul did in Nemes' previous work) witnesses the decline of his age around him, almost as if she herself is an allegory of Europe. The gorgeous final sequence of the film seems to confirm this interpretation. I wouldn't say that the acting performances are particularly relevant, as many characters stoically deliver their few lines of dialogue, however this does not detract from the film's overall quality.

Sunset may not be Oscar-nomination worthy (then again, who knows?), but it is definitely a compelling film that is very European in taste, quality and artistic value.

In a nutshell. Her parents colluded in a nasty little deal with aristocrats, (we learn this right at the very end. 'This is a tradition your parents began.') Possibly to enhance and to ensure their large millinery, with it's fancy hats for the elite, would never go broke... we must remember that old Europe was all about 2 classes and that was rich and slaves/servants.

The hat store burned down, killing the parents and she was sent away at two.

On later finding her long-lost brother. I realised, after the film was over, that perhaps, with his penchant for ethics and dare I say it, treating people as human beings, it may very well have been him who designed that situation. Three quarter way through the film, he pretty much says as much. '...burn that shop down and end this forever.' His group of rebels are seen as only that and here, the brilliance of showing how, even back then, the media is manipulated to only show the 'truths' they want people to hear.

So in the way of vampirical aristocracy, and so rife in the day, and throughout history, this is basically a story about the abuse and theft of the lives of innocents. Mainly women, seen here so clearly as the 'sacrifice', the 'chosen one' to be abominated by those with power - very powerful men.

Clearly shown, no matter what the class, women never did fare well at the hands of men - whether it is the marauding men who revolt at the upper class, potentially to do 'the right thing' and yet, in their wake, leaving such rape and pillage that we see they have no control over their base natures. Or the elite, those craven filthy aristocrats who take what they want, create wars and rape and pillage but 'dress it up a little as if it's a beautiful thing they do', and therein, my take on this, is the sacrifice of the beautiful, sweet and tender women, sent to deliver 'hats' to ostensibly be used for royalty, with the promise of a better life, only to be vampirised by men in fine clothing - no open, overt 'marauding' here... just the insidious clawing of evil depravity - as they do with war to make money, as they do the environment to make money as all innocent and unprotected life is abominated to make money and to keep their power.

It's a war, as depicted right at the end. And this movie mesmerises you the entire way through, confusing you entirely, leading you, just as the back of her neck does... leads as her day goes from a crisp, clean collar to a rumpled one and later, needing to burn the clothing she wears entirely, after she has almost mindlessly and yet unwaveringly, decided to get to the bottom 'of it all.'

Ugly truths, particularly about how our lives are ruled by elites, how women are brutalised at the hands of men, how people will hide truths and do whatever it takes to stay wealthy and protected.

I was totally confused by this when it ended. It took a few hours of hard thinking to get to this. Brilliant, mesmerising and utterly uncomfortable. It is an ugly truth, glaring hard and cruelly at us. We are all enslaved by those in power and by money - and women are the eternal sacrifice to the world of men. (Unless we change it. Thank you #Metoo.) I must add that months later, the implications of how these young women, all lovely with so much to give in life, are chosen to be abominated, abused, raped and tortured, months later, gives me the horrors. I wonder how much of this has gone on 'for covert profit' in those times. If you have issues of horror related to rape, torture of women, beating of women, gratuitious cruelty toward women then I very, very strongly urge you not to watch this film.

With Sunset Nemes Jeles Laszlo is lifting the onion peels of a long gone world buried in mud, the veils of its many lights giving us a feverish look behind the scenes, just in order to confront us with even more layers, riddles and archetypical myths that dominate the mysteries of life from behind the curtains at all times and that is all we as mortals are allowed to see. It is a call for that in order to understand the colours one has to study the old myths and the ways of the stars (aka "Le- eter-nity") and not to remain stuck in a logical mind as we are trained to but to allow that many versions can be true at the same time, like the rainbow shows the whole spectrum of light. Do not stare at it, but get its blessing. David Lynch's Mullholland Drive, Thomas Mann ("Felix Krull"), Hermann Hesse, Arthur Schnitzler, Stanley Kubrick - they all showed in that direction. Iris Leiter: Iris is a pure eye he is giving us, but also the messenger of God, the rainbow, reminder of tragedy, harbinger of evil without knowing it. When she arrives at the house of her father who must have left long ago, an irreversible underground stream starts to surface. The process of downfall speeds up when she finds out she has a brother, maybe her twin brother, the second rainbow, a shadow of herself, Kalman or Arka, messenger of the Titans, often disguised with a beard, but sometimes looking like a elegant prince of many versions, or even in the androgyne version of herself. Confusing play like that of the beasty behaviour of animal natured Gaspar, who - same as Doktor Herz, her heart - turns out to be a helper in those chaotic last days of the apocalypse: wild Gaspar is there to help like the dog of the fools Tarot card bringing her on the right but dangerous path of truth. She travels with the speed of light (aka Leiter - "lighter") in the horse coach, like a lighting bolt from the old world to the new, along the yellow sunshine brick road, nothing can stop her, through the little window we can see what world she is leaving behind, she the regent of the underworld and the deep waters (neither can her boat be stopped by the remains of Sandor as the morning of the new era dawns). She herself is the last ray of the setting sun on a civilization doomed to vanish, Sandor - her brother alter - asks her "why did you wake us up?", elements that will bring dark change and destruction, like in a vampire tale he is asking it (and when the morning comes he has to die), living dead are rising by the opening the crypt, Iris' decyphering of the hat shops cryptic reality and lies opens a bottomless pit, dark battleing Zelda and Oscar Brill who governs over the heritage, get more and more distressed by her sheer presence, Oscar the brilliant, shining Oscar, Brill like glasses in German, only reflecting the light like the moon, he wants to stay the Leiter, the leader, the Leitwulf, the Leitmotiv, the dominating Leitkultur and world view and hopes he can stop the change by ignoring the change, but as the moon he has his dark side, the name he took over changed him already into a "leiht er", the one who lends and bestows, not just the Leiter light and a good countenance with the hats he sells also as protection from the sun and fashion, but even the girls who work for him, he lends to the nobility and what the noble men are doing with the virgin chosen ones brings just more and more suffering - Leid. Too much for the world to take, nurturing the revolution against the rich and the status quo. But even those high places with it's hidden rituals are reached by the light of Iris even faster than the black hand of her brother's dark sect of wild men going berserk, so fast Oscar cannot escape, he the one who tried to cut the sprouts, the sprungs of the ladder (Leiter), offspring like Iris, to keep his secrets hidden and with this he goes even further down the downward slope on the hill (in Bavarian expressed as Leiter) were was once the house that was shining, now in its last moments of the downward spiral of a trip that had began to turn already too long ago into the wrong direction. There is a big circle in front of the house and a round circus tent behind it, making the hat shop to a midpoint in the sign of eternity, the centre of Hamlet's mill, the place which connects this world to the heavens and the underworld (aka Leiter, the ladder of Jack and the beanstalk, the tree of eternity), that's why so many mirrors and glasses, doorways and tunnels can be seen, even through the ceiling he can watch over his world like a ghost viewing the life of the mortals below (and Iris like Alice through the looking glass), that's why the crypt is found and opened there, and he asks Iris to make it a place that can even welcome a queen. And the royals arrive, shining with glitter, a kaleidoscope of light, but the more we get closer to them, it's getting clearer they are decadent since long, mind corrupted insanes, no measure applies to those immoderate heads, shielded by co-opting secret services to her majesty in shining white, who involuntary show Iris like Alice the way deeper down into the rabbit hole. And the more we learn, the faster and hastier it gets. It is a dream in a dream and we cannot be sure on how alive are the living, how dead are the dead and if they have left the building, the labyrinths, the mirror cabinet, the crowded markets, sometimes it's even hard to understand the people talking or our acoustics neglect the obvious, as if our bodies, our senses have left us, we travel together with Iris, nothing is sure any more, a feverish dream indeed, where the archetypes, the underlying basics of reality come into foreground and fight their fight like the Countess and Otto von in her castle, who are but a already rotten version of the Chymical wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, her boy is emotionally raped, an MK Ultra slave and gets presented as a Wunderkind, to function as another front to hide behind, by entertaining the masses as long as possible with awe, the result of bad alchemy mixed with lust, greed and anger leaving us with the four elements, fire (the torches), water (the river), air (the balloon) and earth (the trenches of WW1, where it all ends and gets buried) and they all tell us, there is nothing more to understand, and it's getting all vaporized anyway in order to make way for another, even darker empire to follow soon. There are many more hints and symbols to decipher in this most beautiful picture and mystery thriller, brave tale and and an ever braver take on nowadays reality - I just wait to watch it again - thank you Laszlo and all you wonderful crew for making this film, thank you for this hell of a journey!

I think the film is brilliant, and it can be read as LGBTQ+. The protagonist uses drag to collect information about the girls who were sent to the Prince. She dresses as a man, and that's why she can enter the 'Boys Club' literally and figuratively in a poor district of Budapest. Also, in the last scene, we see Írisz in a WWI trench, and I think that Írisz also uses drag to participate in the boys' game, namely war. The style of the movie can be a little confusing, but the viewer can put the pieces together, and it does not require hard work, just paying attention to - not even tiny - details. I think the style and the narration of the film open the door to many interpretations, including this LBGTQ+ one.