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Sunset Napsz llta and the politics of the period film.pdf (722.91 kB)

Sunset (Napszállta) and the politics of the period film

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-10, 01:16 authored by Thomas AustinThomas Austin
This paper investigates how László Nemes’ Sunset (Napszállta, 2018), a drama set in Budapest of the early 1910s, gestures to but problematises the pleasures of ‘her-itage space’ (Higson 1993). The film combines the careful assembly of period mise en scène with a countervailing and systematic attenuation of this reconstruction, achieved through tight framing, shallow focus and extreme focalisation on the pro-tagonist Írisz Leiter. This strategy consigns many of the splendours of Belle Époque Budapest to off-screen or out-of-focus space. I explore how Sunset’s deployment and complication of the visual, and narrative, pleasures of the period film engages critically with attitudes towards history and the past; the resulting response to the film among Hungarian reviewers; and the gender politics of the film. The institution-alised gender abuse behind the beautiful façade of the Leiter hat store and its opu-lent clients parallels contemporary scandals. Like many period films, Sunset is set on the cusp of change, a moment when “the present imagines itself to have been born and history forever changed” (Sadoff and Kucich 2000). But it refuses to be sealed off as a closed history to be either nostalgically enjoyed or smugly judged at a safe distance from the present.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Studies in European Cinema

ISSN

1741-1548

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2021-10-04

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-10-27

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2021-10-04

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