Gloomy Sunday

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Gloomy Sunday, an alternately dark and gorgeous German bouquet, provides as much romance, glamour and ambience as you’re likely to find from any movie in the past decade (maybe two). Taking place in Hungary pre-, during and post-WWII, it spins a fictional tale from the popular song of the day giving the film its title. The song - a marvelous combo of melody, schmaltz and angst - evidently sparked a spate of suicides internationally, and director/co-writer Rolf Schëbel jumps off from this bit of history to create a love-and-war tale of three men and the woman who changes their lives.

I'd always heard that the cafes and restaurants of pre-war Hungary were among the world's best - full of fine food, vivacity, artists and their art - which the film brings to glowing life. The characters, too, are much richer than your usual movie lovebirds. In fact, they negotiate a tricky but believable menage a trois, nearly unimaginable here in America (or in an American film, at least) but easily understandable in the Europe of this era.

Made in 1999, released in 2000 and an international award winner, Gloomy Sunday has certainly taken its time reaching DVD - perhaps because it proved a tiny sleeper as it played its quiet yet lengthy way across America. Here in Queens, NY, it had a successful run in our local Kew Gardens art cinema, and then made an unusual return visit due to popular demand. In Boston, it holds the record for the single longest-running film in the city's history (besting Cinema Paradiso in the process). It is supremely well-cast, with Joachim Krol (the killer in Soundless) as the restaurant owner, Italian actor Stefano Dionisi as the composer/pianist, Ben Becker (The Harmonists) as the Aryan fourth wheel, and Hungarian actress Erika Marozsan as everyone's best girl. One of the most beautiful women working in film today, Ms. Marozsan radiates in this role a combination of youth, beauty, sensuality and kindness. No wonder she knocks men off balance. (She's recently been cast - along with a dozen other terrific actors - in Robert Benton's adaptation of the splendid Charles Baxter novel The Feast of Love. If that movie turns out anywhere near as good as the novel, moviegoers are in for something special, and this actress may find herself with a career here in the States.)

As good as Gloomy Sunday is - rich in detail, intelligent and immensely enjoyable - it's not a great film because it is finally more interested in surface than depth, melodrama over drama, mystery over history. Yet I cannot think of another movie I would recommend to literally everyone I know and expect them to come back to me pleased - perhaps much more than that - to have seen it.