Even by 1999 (that is when this movie is released), the dime-a-dozen premise and in-your-face moralizing that this movie offers is way passe. When I saw this in 2017, the problem is only exacerbated, there being many clone-after-clone movies of this nature having been released in between.With greater inventiveness and a much tighter script, this movie could have stood the test of time. As it is, its is visually pleasing, but another way overlong humdrum decades spanning wannabe 'epic' with a childishly ambitious scripting and unnecessary voice-over 'let me tell you how fantastically unimaginable things were for us' schtick. Squeezing in way way too many unnecessary and pointless dialogues, scenes and subplots that add nothing, while skipping over important developments in the blink of an eye, brought this elephantine movie to 3 hours, when much much more impact could have been delivered in a more professionally tightened and focused script at under 2 hours.Trying to bang-in on Ralph Fiennes star-power by letting him play three generations of himself looking and behaving exactly himself with moustache on/off is just a ridiculous Monty Python joke - totally big mistake. Someone in the directorial team must have also thought, "Oh sex sells, especially pseudo- incestious sort of sex so lets put in not one, but two of it. How brilliant of us!" Which of course just make a bigger lemon of the whole outing.The exploding village refinery at the beginning of the movie, and the freezing second version of the same old same old Ralph Fiennes are about the only two interesting bits. The rest of the visuals are definitely worth viewing, but the main problem is the mundane scripting and the casting of Ralph Fiennes as cloned grandpa-dad-grandson and totally mirthful attempts at shock-family-sex-affairs, and of course the 3 hours of why-was-that-scene-even-necessary.And of course it was a commercial flop. For me, also an artistic flop. Cinematography is the only plus.

Intentions are good and every effort is made to make this a worthy film. Unfortunately, the end result is contemptible. Three major flaws are at the root of this: failed continuity, miscasting and upset footage mixing.The film tells the short but eventful history of Hungary shown through the eyes of three generations of the family Sonnenschein/Sors. Major events are squeezed in less than minutes and important characters are studied only superficially. For instance, when father and son Sors end up in a Nazi concentration camp, the only scene that's included is when the camp leaders kill the father in a horrendous manner while helplessly watched by the son (one of the most intense scenes of the movie). Okay, that was the concentration camp, on to the next scene. No time is taken to delve into the psyche of a traumatized concentration camp survivor, no time to watch things unfold, as if in a great hurry. The same is true for most of the important events taking place in the lives of the protagonists.Adding to the confusion is the fact that the father, the son and the grandson are all played by the same actor, Ralph Fiennes. Undistinguishable, I must say. Adding a mustache doesn't help here: Fiennes remains the same aloof, uninspiring character in all three roles. I am certainly not impressed with his acting skills, although it can always be worse, as evidenced by his zero-talented brother Joseph. Still, only the best of the best actors can manage to remain credible in three different roles in one and the same movie.Another facet which irritated and simultaneously bemused me was the incorporation of present-day shots into old footage, antiquing contemporary sequences as though it would ever fit in with the shaky, unreproducible images of days gone by. And then, still imprisoned in this fake imagery, Fiennes holds a speech. How embarrassing

This is such an outstanding, Oscar-caliber film. I saw it in 1999, and I still think about probably because of all the junk they show on cable. Not even once did they show this amazing movie about three generations, history, as well as personal and social tragedies of numerous people intertwined with all the unforgettable historical changes. It is not just a movie about the Holocaust-- it is about deeply rooted personal conflicts we can all relate to. I just think it's unfair it was never even mentioned by any of the major networks. If any movie deserved an Oscar in 1999 year, it was this one. It is just too bad for so many social and historical reasons that younger viewers will probably never even see this film.

This historical epic/family drama from the master of Hungarian cinema, Istvan Szabo (Mephisto, 1981; Being Julia, 2004) is a wonderful and memorable film that has been overlooked, underrated and sadly under-seen.This is a moving and always engrossing drama about one Jewish-Hungarian family that rises and falls throughout the 20th century. Ralph Fiennes is outstanding as the grandfather, the father and the grandson. All three - complex and tragic characters, victims of their times, politics and wars. I think it was a brilliant idea to cast one actor as a face of three generations of one family. If ever anyone attempts to adapt Marquez's "One Hundreds Years of Solitude", that's how it should be done, IMO."Sunshine" is three hours long but never for a minute had I felt it was too long or it was losing its power. It is a serious, thought-provoking film which is also a superb work of art.9.5/10