SUNSET

SUNSET, 2018
Hungary, France | DCP, Color, 142’ | Hungarian, German
Director: László Nemes
Cast: Susanne Wuest, Urs Rechn, Vlad Ivanov

In his second film, László Nemes takes the viewers to the period of World War I. Growing up as an orphan, Irisz returns to the famous hat store Leiter in Budapest, founded by her parents, whom she has never met, and asks for a job. But the new owner of the store rejects her. The young woman goes to the place where other workers of the store are staying at and finds out that she has a brother, which prompts her to find out more about her past. Throughout the film, Nemes uses long takes, close ups of the film’s protagonist and low voiced dialogues as if to show everyone has secrets. The hat in the film represents a civilization that conceals the degeneration and conflict of Hungarian society before the war.