Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

rooprect The late 90s through the early 00s were a breeding ground for urban legends, as we saw in Magnolia (1999), Darwin Awards (2006) and of course the Urban Legends film & TV franchise spanning the decade. Maybe it's due to the fact that the internet, with its viral sensationalism, had just become popular while fact-checking resources had not yet caught up. This made for some very creative storytelling at the expense of truth. But heck, isn't that what storytelling is all about.Here we have "Gloomy Sunday" (1999) an intriguing story woven around the titular song which, as urban legend has it, caused or accompanied some 20 suicides (exaggerated to "hundreds" in the film). In reality, the song has never been credibly linked to any suicides except that a lot of people in Hungary killed themselves in the 30s when the song was recorded. But I dunno, maybe Hungary's Great Depression had a little more of a role in that statistic?Enough history. The rest of my review approaches this film as a pure work of fiction, and it's a pretty good one. It's not simply a 2-dimensional message like "sad songs kill people" but it cuts more to the root of what suicide is, the complexity of what motivates it (not just having a sucky life, otherwise a lot more of us would be at the bottom of San Francisco Bay), and how music, art, love and war resonate with the concept of killing oneself.The story revolves around a love rectangle between the song's composer (a piano player in a restaurant), a waitress, the restaurant owner and a regular diner in the resaurant. But it's no ordinary "jealous lover" type of cliché. Rather, the theme of love, just like the theme of death, is that it is a personal choice that cannot be subjected to society's morals or rules. In other words, the lovers place no conventional expectations on each other (though fury & resentment does play into it). Immediately it strikes you as a love story worth paying attention to.Next comes the theme of war, particularly World War II and the Nazi persecution of Jewish people. This adds tremendous spice, depth and peril to the situation. It's handled in a subtle yet chilling way that reminds me of the excellent Benigni film around the same time "Life Is Beautiful".Last but certainly not least is the story's climax and resolution which, itself is worth the price of admission. Let's just say I did not see it coming. And when a film can do that (without being ridiculous) I'm always impressed. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be.The music itself is nice, if you like the song "Gloomy Sunday", but if I were to nitpick, I have to say I didn't like the Heather Nova cover of the song at the closing credits because it featured the "updated" lyrics that were added to the English version in 1936 to make it less depressing (I'm talking about the "dreaming, I was only dreaming" part). I know Billie Holiday popularized that amendment in her famous version, but Billie is allowed to do whatever she damn wants!Bottom line: great story, great production, great acting & cinematography. But, as with the excellent film "Amadeus", don't expect to study for your musical history exam by watching it. This is creative storytelling at its best.

Frederick Regenold Gloomy Sunday-IMDb A great movie experience. I'm 82 and have been watching movies since I was five years old. This is an unforgettable film. Every facet is superb. The acting is flawless, the cinematography is breathtaking, and the gripping story has every human emotion imaginable. It's hypnotic from start to finish, but keep in mind, you have to be attentive. There are some subtle touches that can go unnoticed if you're not carefully observing and listening, and missing them can possibly deprive you of fully understanding and enjoying the fantastic ending. The skilled director doesn't use a heavy hand, and that's admirable. Every single actor gives a perfect performance. Having studied acting for five years, I must mention that they don't act, they behave. Erika Marozsán's portrayal is colossal! I've fallen in love with her. Even if I were five years old now, there's a scene with Joachim Król I'd remember the rest of my life. I've viewed that particular scene about eight times. Gut-wrenching, yet inspirational. Never in my life have a watched any movie four times, and I just saw this one again for the fourth time… in one week! If not for IMDb and Netflix, I would never have heard of it. And it received no nominations for the Academy Awards. Ridiculous! This is truly a masterpiece! I've never written a review for IMDb, but for this film I had to do it. I cannot praise this movie enough!

Galina Gloomy Sunday - Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod directed by Rolf Schübel in 1999 is a romantic, absorbing, beautiful, and heartbreaking movie. It started like Jules and Jim; it ended as one of Agatha Christie's books, and in between it said something about love, friendship, devotion, jealousy, war, Holocaust, dignity, and betrayal, and it did better than The Black Book which is much more popular. It is not perfect, and it made me, a cynic, wonder in the end on the complexity of the relationships and sensational revelations, and who is who to whom but the movie simply overwhelmed me. Perfect or not, it is unforgettable. All four actors as the parts of the tragic not even a triangle but a rectangle were terrific. I do believe that three men could fell deeply for one girl as beautiful and dignified as Ilona in a star-making performance by young Hungarian actress Erica Marozsán and who would not? The titular song is haunting, sad, and beautiful, and no doubt deserves the movie been made about it and its effect on the countless listeners. I love the movie and I am surprised that it is so little known in this country. It is a gem.The fact that it is based on a story of the song that had played such important role in the lives of all characters made me do some research, and the real story behind the song of Love and Death seems as fascinating as the fictional one. The song was composed in 1930s by Rezsö Seress and was believed to have caused many suicides in Hungary and all over Europe as the world was moving toward the most devastating War of the last century. Rezsö Seress, a Jewish-Hungarian pianist and composer, was thrown to the Concentration Camp but survived, unlike his mother. In January, 1968, Seress committed suicide in Budapest by jumping out of a window. According to his obituary in the New York Times, "Mr. Seres complained that the success of "Gloomy Sunday" actually increased his unhappiness, because he knew he would never be able to write a second hit." Many singers from all over the world have recorded their versions of the songs in different languages. Over 70 performers have covered the song since 1935, and some famous names include Billie Holiday, Paul Robeson, Pyotr Leschenko (in Russian, under title "Mratschnoje Woskresenje"), Bjork, Sarah McLachlan, and many more. The one that really got to me and made me shiver is by Diamanda Galás, the Greek born American singer/pianist/performer with the voice of such tragic power that I still can't get over her singing. Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", and in her work she mostly concentrates on the topics of "suffering, despair, condemnation, injustice and loss of dignity." When she sings the Song of Love and Death, her voice that could've belonged to the most tragic heroines of Ancient Greece leaves no hope and brings the horror and grief of love lost forever to the unbearable and incomparable heights.8.5/10

Christian Heynk Although I am German and although I found out that a lot of Germans usually talk very fondly of German films (even the bad ones) I just have to resist this impulse. German films are, in comparison to American films, generally very bad. The Americans just know how to entertain whereas the German actors (even the so called good actors) always look clumsy and helpless when they act. I can't think of any German actor that could probably deliver the same performance like the top American actors. Please don't get me wrong: There are some good German films (Das Boot, Sophie Scholl) but usually they have to do with WW II and then it's very often not the actors that make the movie interesting but rather the plot (which is so good that even German actors can't mess it up). There are very many bad American films, too, but still even bad American movies have sometimes very fine actors in it. Anyway, regarding GLOOMY Sunday: Krol doesn't deliver a convincing performance, he just knows how to look sad and happy at the same time. The pathos and melodrama was overdone and the news reel about the people that committed suicide because of the song just made me laugh. Ben Becker displays no passion for his role, he just blurts out the lines of his script and intermittently he tries to look the mean Nazi which doesn't work either. The song of gloomy Sunday is played far too often throughout the movie, I almost had the impression that the director thought every time that he discovered a whole in the plot: Oh, no problem, we'll just play the theme song again. The ending was ridiculous too and had a very controversial message: It says that revenge is OK, and that Eichmann deserved to die (an eye for an eye) and all that BS. You should watch Dead Man walking instead. So, hopefully, we'll be getting some better German movies in the future, I still can't believe that people wasted their money on this one. Maybe I should become a director myself, then we wouldn't have to see bad German films ever again. Watta you think?