Before Sunset

Nine years on Celine and Jessie meet in Paris not entirely by destiny or sheer force of circumstance... Nine years ago I loved Before Sunrise so much! And identified with it even though I was far from home not out of choice - and a war of the kind that bothered Celine in Bosnia was going on in my own country... But I was young. I was 24, actually, very romantic and innocent. Now I Know how things work a little better. The world, relationships. But I'm still plunging into causes for their own sake. And I'm still a reasonably normal person. Just like the characters in this film. Paris has never looked simpler in its casual elegance. Dialogue has never seemed more natural. A script never touched real life like this one so effortlessly. I'm in love with these characters - and with the ending... This is how European Cinema used to be - and Hollywood, too for that matter. Naturally real and magical in the details.

I'm a movie lover. That first thing said, i have to recognize that i'm really hard on movies, and i usually discard many of them for being under-prepared, for so many errors and things like that. But with "Before Sunset" i felt different. We all know movies are just fakes: what happens, what we see is not the real life. It's just a construction. It's just somebody imagination becoming a visual media. But when i was watching this movie, i didn't felt that. I was seeing real people, with real problems and having thoughts, and fears and hopes. It's the most real acting i ever saw. All about it is just perfect: the ambiance, the set, the city, even the apartment we can see at the near end. Every piece of the movie was connected, and you can tell a whole story about the characters just for hear them, or seeing the way they talk, the things they said, the music they chooses or the things they have. In that way of thinking, i found this movie inspirational, a well-made piece of life, and incredibly deep and wide film. I think this is a portrait of life as only a few can know, of all the shadows and lights we all share.

So, i really recommend it, even if you didn't saw the first one.

Before Sunset (2004)

**** (out of 4)

Nine years after the events in BEFORE SUNRISE, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) returns to Paris to do a Q&A for his book, which just happens to talk about that night in Vienna. Celine (Julie Delpy) winds up coming to the event and afterwards they've got a little over a hour to catch up on what's been going on in their lives. BEFORE SUNSET is clearly an improvement over the already very good first film but what makes this one here even more special is that it captures the magic of the first picture while at the same time taking a look at the darker issues in their lives. As with the first film, it's really amazing how director Richard Linklater managed to make this feel like a documentary that you're watching and not once do you see Hawke and Delpy as actors but instead you see them as real people that are simply being filmed by an invisible camera. The film manages to really make you believe that the story is picking up nine years after the previous film and I must say that the explanation for the ending of the first movie is extremely well handled. I'm not going to spoil what happened six months later but it's perfectly handled here. Even the first appearance of Celine is extremely beautiful and perfectly done. I really liked the dialogue here but I also like the fact that it once again comes across so real. I say this because I viewed this at the same age of the characters and I thought their feelings on growing older are so true. Hearing Hawke talk about his son and relationships is just something one can connect with and like the previous film the situations make you feel as if you could be the one doing the talking or at least you know someone like these characters. Once again both Hawke and Delpy are terrific together and really fit back well in their characters. There are more emotional or dramatic moments here and both handle them well. Linklater, who wrote the script with the two stars, keeps the film moving at a great pace and really manages to make one fall for the situation that these two are in.

I'd been longing to see this one as I'd always thought 'Before Sunrise' was one of the most honest, most real films I'd ever seen, but at the same time I held off seeing the sequel from fear of disappointment. For all of you in the same position, fear not ; Linklater, Hawke and Delphy (for it has surely been a joint effort and labour of love for all three) have done us and themselves proud. I've just seen the film and despite being male and 38 I feel like Roberta Flack must have felt when she penned 'Killing me Softly' after hearing Don McLean sing 'Vincent' in concert; this is - once again - just so close to what it's all about. You want technicalities? The acting, superb; Hawke and Delphy slip right back into their characters, their mannerisms, their sometimes gauche repartee, the way they seem to fence around each other, seeming to go in for the kill then feigning, drawing back…Exquisite. And then the details, the echoes of the first film in the settings but now with a world-weariness, an autumnal note and yet with still that fundamental freshness and optimism that revives the memories of Sunrise's youthfulness and reminds us, as our heroes discuss, that though time changes people, there remains an unchanging core. Just see it; this is about as good as it gets, folks.

I had not seen the prequel to this although my date had and she filled me in on many details. While the experience of this film would be enriched by having seen the preceding film first, it certainly stands satisfactorily alone.

In many ways, this reminded me very much of one of my most favorite movies of all time, "My Dinner with André," in which just 2 characters talking comprised the whole movie. In that movie, the friends had been close, drifted apart, and then had a brief reunion at a dinner at which they caught up with what the other had been doing. The two principals, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, played themselves and each represented one side of a dialectic, say the side of romanticism vs. a conventional reality. "Before Sunset" is parallel in many ways.

At one level we have a romantic story -- two people who'd briefly been lovers nine years before and lost touch meet again. They spend an afternoon together. Will they try to fulfill what they'd started?

At another level, we have the charm of conversation and exploration, of reminiscing, of gradually feeling out and discovery of how much do I have in common with this person now? -- where has this person been? -- what are they capable of now? -- how much freedom of choice do I have, does this other person have -- to make decisions? Etc.

While Celine and Jesse have a capacity for relating and talking, they also have somewhat opposite ways of viewing the world and relationships -- Celine is more cynical and reserved; Jesse is more open to settling for the "not-perfect-but-good-enough."

There are possibly a few people who have not had the personal experiences that at least somewhat relate to the premise in this film -- a relationship in which one wonders, "what would have happened if I'd pursued that relation?" but probably most people have. And the other dilemma, of meeting again that someone but by now being involved in relationships of responsibility -- my family, my children, my present life. What would it do to them if I were to pursue my own happiness at the expense of them? Can I do that? Can I value the chance of my own happiness above theirs? Etc.

The film, fortunately, gives us no answers to these essential questions but it does pose them in a way that makes us consider them.

Delpy and Hawke are given screenwriter credits and I feel sure that they must've contributed a great deal to the feeling of seamless, natural dialogue.

GREAT movie. No movie satisfies everyone, of course, but at the time I wrote this, slightly over 50% of the voters gave it a 10/10. For those of us in that group, it's a great film.