GLOOMY Sunday (dir. Rolf Schubel) A haunting and award winning German film that offers an imagined account of the making of the Hungarian pop song, 'Gloomy Sunday', and some of the mysterious history surrounding the tune.
This song is tied to a recurring urban legend that claims that many people committed suicide with this song playing, however when you check the facts, there seems to be no real evidence to support this allegation. This lugubrious pop tune happened to be written at the outbreak of WWII, and to make the claim that this song caused more people to end their lives than the immediate prospect of a world war seems almost too silly to imagine.
However, the film becomes more successful when it shuns the metaphysical aspects of the song's legend to develop a (fictional?) love triangle between the composer of the song and his employer and girlfriend who run the restaurant where the pianist entertains the patrons. The film slips into melodrama as the Germans occupy Hungary, and another possible lover of the restaurant's hostess is introduced who happens to become a colonel in the Nazi SS.
Although the film veers dangerously close to mawkishness, the 'doomed romance' described in the film does allow for somewhat of an entertaining experience.
This song is tied to a recurring urban legend that claims that many people committed suicide with this song playing, however when you check the facts, there seems to be no real evidence to support this allegation. This lugubrious pop tune happened to be written at the outbreak of WWII, and to make the claim that this song caused more people to end their lives than the immediate prospect of a world war seems almost too silly to imagine.
However, the film becomes more successful when it shuns the metaphysical aspects of the song's legend to develop a (fictional?) love triangle between the composer of the song and his employer and girlfriend who run the restaurant where the pianist entertains the patrons. The film slips into melodrama as the Germans occupy Hungary, and another possible lover of the restaurant's hostess is introduced who happens to become a colonel in the Nazi SS.
Although the film veers dangerously close to mawkishness, the 'doomed romance' described in the film does allow for somewhat of an entertaining experience.