A sequel to 1995’s Before
Sunrise, this film follows the same disarmingly simple formula: two people meet by chance and spend several
hours walking around a beautiful European city talking about themselves, their
lives, their thoughts and dreams. The
two people are the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the French Celine (Julie
Delpy). The first time they met, they
were both students on a train from Budapest to Vienna. They hit it off, and Jesse convinced Celine
to stay on the train with him all the way to Vienna where they then spent the
whole night in conversation against a backdrop of Viennese streets and
nightspots. In the morning, when it was
time to part, they hastily arranged another meeting for one year later. That’s the end of Before Sunrise.
It’s now nine years
later. Jesse is a writer on a book tour
for his latest novel--a novel telling a partly fictionalized story based on his
one night with Celine nine years ago.
Celine shows up at the small Paris bookstore where he is signing copies
of his book...and the conversation continues.
It turns out they didn’t meet up again as planned eight years ago, and
their lives went in separate directions.
Now Jesse has to catch a flight in a few hours, but that still leaves
them enough time to get caught up, right?
That’s the beginning of Before Sunset.
Before Sunrise was
one of the minor gems of the 90s. It
couldn’t have been a smaller, more intimate movie, which is why it didn’t make
a big splash at the box office. But
over the years, it has gained a new life on video as people have gradually come
to discover its rich charms. There is
nothing extraordinary about these two characters: they are nice looking, but
not model-beautiful; they are smart and educated, but they don’t talk like
philosophers or poets; they are funny, but only in the way most people are
funny when they are comfortable and relaxed.
The appeal of the film lies not in its characters as such, but in its
willingness to let them be themselves honestly in front of us with so little
obstruction. We get to see the process
that is almost always skipped over in “romantic” movies, the process by which
two people actually get to know and become attracted to each other. How often are we asked to believe that two
characters fall deeply in love merely because they are in the same place and
they are both good looking? In Before
Sunrise, we get to watch it happen.
The moments of emotional honesty pour forth simply because they are
allowed to, without extraneous characters and plot devices and conventional
scene structures getting in the way. This
small movie became a touchstone for a certain brand of narrative minimalism.
Before Sunset
is, if anything, an even better film, with, if possible, even less of a
plot. There is a story, of course, but the
story doesn’t exist in plot points and events.
It exists in the minds, hearts and words of the characters. They are more mature, having lived more
life, but the youthful romantic chemistry is still there between them, even if
the constraints of their grown-up lives make it more problematic than
ever. The time that Hawke and Delpy
have spent playing these characters, and their collaborative role with director
Richard Linklater in writing the screenplay, shines through every word they
speak: there is not a false note to be
heard. And in a masterstroke, the movie
has the audacious good sense to end on a moment of exquisite uncertainty that
sums up everything without explaining anything. If we are very, very lucky, Linklater, Hawke and Delpy will be back
in another nine years to catch us up again.
©
2005 dondi demarco