Sunset
Period Pieces: historical dramas for the modern world
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2h 21m
Directed by László Nemes • 2018 • Hungary
László Nemes transports us into the decadent heart of late imperial high society in his hypnotic period piece follow-up to the Oscar-winning Son of Saul. In 1913, as the continent teeters on the brink of disaster, an orphaned woman named Írisz Leiter (Juli Jakab) returns to Budapest to seek employment in her late parents’ luxury hat store. Rebuffed by the officious new manager Oszkár Brill (Vlad Ivanov), she becomes caught up in the search for her long-lost brother, a shadowy criminal who has disappeared after murdering a minor aristocrat. What unfolds is part The Third Man and part Eyes Wide Shut, shot in Nemes’s distinctive long-take style. A murder mystery and historical thriller of exquisite period detail that captures a civilisation on the brink of self-destruction.
SUNSET • NAPSZÁLLTA
Written and directed by László Nemes
Cinematography by Mátyás Erdély
Music by László Melis
Starring: Juli Jakab, Vlad Ivanov, Evelin Dobos
In Hungarian and German with English subtitles
Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival 2018
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