Available at QUADflix, New York city's Ultimate Indie Store
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Directed by Rolf Schübel
Featuring Joachim Król, Erika Marozsán, Stefano Dionisi
"The film is high romance, rather like those American movies of the 1940s: people snatching at happiness in a world aflame." — Time Magazine
Budapest, Hungary in the thirties. Restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant, and both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona. She inspires András to write the hit composition Gloomy Sunday, (recorded most famously by Billie Holiday). The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the soon-to-be Nazi soldier Hans falls in love with Ilona as well.
GERMAN FILM AWARDS 2000
NOMINEE, Film Award In Gold
GUILD OF GERMAN ART HOUSE CINEMAS 2000
WINNER! GUILD FILM AWARD IN GOLD
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Tracing the period around the Nazi invasion of Budapest, the movie mostly unfolds in Szabo, a swank eatery whose chief attractions (besides a buttered beef roll) are a comely hostess and a soul-sick house pianist. The trio enters into a sweet-spirited menage a trois, as the punishing minor-key murmur into the void sparks a suicide trend that crosses the Atlantic before the Germans "dump the last bucket of shit" on everyone's heads. Having fended off Hans - who vows to build Germany's largest import-export business if Ilona will marry him - he reappears later as the corrupt German SS officer in charge of the Final Solution in Hungary. Will Hans, who craves Ilona as much as ever, save the life of Laszlo, who is Jewish?
The film's tone establishes a kind of sweet-tart nostalgia capable of accommodating the muted horror of the film's later passages, as well as a great morally balancing surprise ending. The acting, especially Krol's combination of innocence and worldliness and Marozsan's blend of yielding and manipulation embue the film with every shade of the emotional spectrum.
SELECTED AWARDS
BAVARIAN FILM AWARDS 2000
WINNER! Bavarian Film Award
GERMAN CAMERA AWARD 2000
NOMINEE, German Camera Award
GERMAN FILM AWARDS 2000
NOMINEE, Film Award In Gold
GERMAN SCREENPLAY AWARD 2000
WINNER! SCREENPLAY AWARD
GUILD OF GERMAN ART HOUSE CINEMAS 2000
WINNER! GUILD FILM AWARD IN GOLD
MAR DEL PLATA FILM FESTIVAL 1999
HONORABLE MENTION, OCIC AWARD
SATELLITE AWARDS 2004
NOMINEE, GOLDEN SATELLITE AWARD
SELECTED REVIEWS
"Gloomy Sunday has a mood and a magic about it that elicit emotion from the beginning and make an audience follow it down its curving and melancholy path." — San Fransisco Chronicle
"Odd, how affecting this imperfect film becomes." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
"The movie is about nothing less than a song's power to make people live, love, or die. It's a winsome pipe dream." — The Village Voice
GLOOMY SUNDAY SONG LYRICS (1935)
By Rezso Seress (music) and Laszlo Javor (lyrics)
Sunday is gloomy, my hours are slumberless.
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless.
Little white flowers will never awaken you,
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.
Angels have no thought of ever returning you.
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday.
Gloomy is Sunday; with shadows I spend it all.
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
Soon there'll be candles and prayers that are sad, I know.
Death is no dream, for in death I'm caressing you.
With the last breath of my soul I'll be blessing you.
Gloomy Sunday
FILM SPECIFICATIONS
Director: Rolf Schübel
Actors: Erika Marozsán, Joachim Król, Ben Becker, Stefano Dionisi, András Bálint
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: German (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 1
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Release Date: September 12, 2006
Run Time: 112 minutes
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read more about Gloomy Sunday on Internet Movie Database.
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A glance - Desire - Temptation - Lust - Love - Passion....flvby Katrina508018,151,310 views
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