1995
Directed by Richard Linklater
Writing credits according to the
WGA:
I just watched this
movie again to be able to do it
justice in this
writeup and it brought home again the fact that this is one hell of a movie. I love it. It
appeals to me in so many ways, that I can't begin to
describe them all. But anyway, this
writeup should be about the movie, not about me or my feelings towards it.
It's all about
dialog. In fact, the whole
film is dialog. And guess what? That's what makes this such a good movie. The dialog is
real, it makes sense, and it makes it interesting. It's all there, nothing is left out. The
mistakes, the
stutters, the
hesitations, the
meaningless monologues, the semi-heated
discussion, the
awkward silences. And the
comfortable silences, too. It is such a
relief to watch a movie where a
sentence uttered by one of the
leads is answered with simple silence. It's not ignored. It's
answered by the silence. Brilliant... and not to mention real. How many times has it not happened to you in a
conversation? The other
person says something that could
warrant a
vocal response by you, but instead you keep silent, letting the silence answer for you.
The
story this film tells is as basic as it gets. Two people
meet, spend time together, fall in
love and then say
goodbye. That, in a
nutshell, is the whole movie. Jesse (
Ethan Hawke) meets Celine (
Julie Delpy) on a
train traveling through
Europe. His destination is
Vienna, where a
flight back to
America awaits him the next
morning, while she's on her way to
Paris. They have a meal in the
lounge car together, and when the train reaches Vienna they realize they're
having a good time and don't really want to break off their conversation yet. So Jesse persuades Celine to get off in Vienna with him, to keep him
company as he
wanders around the
city through the
night.
The rest of the movie works out the wandering night of these two
people as they get to
know and
love one another. It seems as if
it was taken out of real life, and maybe that is what appeals to me most. I can
imagine this
happening to two people, if only they have enough
guts to do it. I would like to think that I had enough guts, but
I'm not so sure. I hope
someday I'll find out.
Apparantly, there is to be a
sequel, called
Before Sunset, which is about a
second chance meeting of the two main characters years later in
France. Even
though most sequels are not worth the
celluloid they are printed on, this
might possibly work.
Sources:
IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0112471
Talking Movies: a film critique show on BBC World; this gave me the
heads up on the existence of Before Sunset
August 20, 2001