director
Richard Linklater
screenwriters
Julie Delpy
Ethan Hawke
Richard Linklater
story and
characters by
Richard
Linklater
Kim Krizan
producers
Richard Linklater
Anne Walker-McBay
cinematographer
Lee Daniel
editor
Sandra Adair
cast
Ethan Hawke (Jesse)
Julie Delpy (Celine)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 80m
u.s.
release: 7/2/04
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other richard
linklater films
reviewed on this website:
- the bad
news bears
- before
sunrise
(short
review)
- the
newton boys
- a scanner darkly
- school
of rock
- suburbia
- waking
life
|
At the end of the small, enchanting
Before Sunrise (1995),
Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), who have randomly
met and had one of those long, lyrical nights of talk and love,
promise each other that they will meet back in Vienna in six
months. The follow-up film, Before Sunset, will tell you
whether they did or didn't meet up, but far more important is
who they became. The Before films, as they will probably
come to be called, were both directed by Richard Linklater, an
amiably and gently experimental filmmaker who specializes in
small moments that reveal more than most big-budget Hollywood
movies do. Linklater was 34 when he made the first film, 43 when
he shot the second. He was already pretty mature and smart about
relationships nine years ago, but Before Sunset shows
an even deeper maturation.
Jesse, it turns out, is a published
novelist; his book This Time, based on his own experiences
in the first film, has come out to acclaim and decent sales (probably
a warmer reception than Ethan Hawke's own stabs at fiction have
gotten). Concluding a reading and Q&A at a Paris bookshop,
Jesse spots a familiar face across the room -- Celine, who has
come to listen and who, it so happens, has read the book and
approves. "I don't usually like romantic stuff," she
says, "but, um ... it was well-written, though!" Almost
immediately, they fall back into their old verbal rhythms from
nine years ago. They enjoy each other's company, but something
is eating at both of them. Nine years have taken a toll; they've
lived a lot of life since they were moonstruck 22-year-olds on
holiday in Vienna, and they are different people now. Their reunion
brings this home rather painfully.
Celine works as a political
activist, and her more relevant life (in Jesse's view) puts his
comfortable novelist's life to shame. She can't keep a boyfriend;
he is married with a son, and we learn, a little conveniently,
that he isn't terribly fulfilled in the marriage. But the question
in Before Sunset is not whether Jesse and Celine will
get back together; as in the first film, Linklater is much more
interested in how the two relate to life now, which areas of
their soul have been toughened up and which have remained soft
and vulnerable. These films are too stubbornly garrulous and
too probing to settle for storybook romance. Before Sunset
is like revisiting an old favorite novel in which, unbeknownst
to you, a new epilogue has been added. We're more than happy
to hear Jesse and Celine talking again.
The pair wander around Paris,
parrying on such topics as sex, politics, and expectations of
life. Anyone expecting a conventional plot, as some people at
the screening I attended apparently were, will grow restless:
Linklater gives you the moments that happen when other movies
aren't looking. Before Sunrise, filmed when both Hawke
and Delpy had a little more meat on their bones, was a delicate
ode to the passions of mind and heart. Hawke and Delpy look skinnier
here (particularly Hawke, who borders on gaunt), as if the indulgences
of their student years had been carved away. They don't act here
so much as exist within the characters they have created. The
movie is smoothly filmed in "real time," following
the two through talk and silence, yet never dragging.
Before Sunset is a gemlike minimalist triumph --
deeper and more provocative than its predecessor, which had the
questions of youth on its mind. The new film has no answers,
and suggests that questioning minds will never stop. I have to
agree with the many fans of both films: These two flawlessly
shaped movies are sufficient for me, but the prospect of Jesse
and Celine running across each other again in 2013 is undeniably
alluring (as long as the entire creative team returns). Linklater
could have an art-house franchise here comparable to Satyajit
Ray's Apu Trilogy or François Truffaut's Antoine
Doinel series. If he's satisfied with these bookend Sunrise/Sunset
films, though, so am I.
|