Holocaust Movies

Her stories about her life during the war begin to unravel, exposing her as a liar and adding a tone of mystery to the strained relationship between Nathan, Stingo, and herself. The film culminates in a flashback reflecting the horrors of the war and the true cause of Sophie's insufferable pain.

Sunshine

Director István Szabó's Sunshine is an epic tale that follows the Polish family the Sonnenscheins through five generations spanning more than 100 years, from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, exploring the history, politics, world wars, social diaspora, and economic shifts that influence and change them during that period.

Beginning with Emmanuel Sonnenschein, who builds a business around the family product (a Taste of Sunshine tonic), the film follows the lineage from his son Ignaz (Ralph Fiennes), a political conservative loyal to the Hungarian Republic, to Ignaz's son Adam (also played by Fiennes), an Olympic fencer who is victimized by the Nazi genocide, to Adam's son Ivan (Fiennes again), a member of the Hungarian communist regime who manages to divorce himself from it and be free.

Through these transitions, it is Valerie (played by both Jennifer Ehle and her real-life mother, Rosemary Harris), the cousin and wife of Ignaz, who becomes mother to Adam and grandmother to Ivan, supplying moral support, a family backbone, and photographs: a signature snapshot technique is used in the film to round out each major chapter or event.

Although the story was fictional the film did draw on several real sources when putting the story together, one of Fiennes' three roles is based at least partly on Hungarian Olympian Attila Petschauer, but also includes allusions to the early life of George Soros.

The film was nominated for a string of awards including Golden Globes, Satellite Awards, Genie Awards and European Film Awards.

The Reader is released 2nd January

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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