REVIEW: I WATCHED BEFORE SUNSET AGAIN FOR THE MILLION TIME..

Celine: It's not so easy for me to be a romantic. You start off that way, and, after you've been screwed over a few times, you... you forget about all your delusional ideas, and you just take what comes into your life.

Celine: That's not even true! I haven't been... screwed over, I've just had too many... blah relationships. They weren't mean, they cared for me, but... they were no real... connection, or excitement! At least, not from my side.

Jesse: God, I'm sorry, is it... is it really that bad? It's not, right?

Celine: You know... It's not even that, I was... I was fine, until I read your fucking book! It stirred shit out of me, you know? It reminded me how... genuinely romantic I was, how I had so much hope in things and... now it's like... I don't believe in anything that relates to love, I don't feel things for people anymore!

Celine: In a way... I put all my romanticism into that one night and I was never able to feel all this again. Like... somehow this night took things away from me and... I expressed them to you, and you took them with you! It made me feel cold, like if love wasn't for me!




People just have an affair, or even entire relationships. They break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals!
I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with. Because each person have their own, specific qualities, you can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost.

Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved, because it hurts too much! Even getting laid! I actually don’t do that.
I will miss on the other person the most mundane things. Like I’m obsessed with little things.

…

Little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, and that I miss, and will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details.

Like I remember the way, your beard has a bit of red in it. And how the sun was making it glow, that morning, right before you left. I remember that, and I missed it! I’m really crazy, right?”




I loved the first film in the Before series, I was immensely charmed and I couldn’t help but conclude that It’s indeed one of the best romance films that I’ve ever seen.

And I had to know what was going to happen afterwards even if Linklater could have terminated Jesse and Céline’s story, after the first one without problems.

I’ve also heard that the two films following up to the first one were even better than the first one, so I just had to see for myself. I must say that now that I have seen them, up until now I think It’s true.

As I said I loved the first one, but this one found It’s footing quicker, it had the same philosophical conversations, but also had incredibly witty and highly comedic banters, where I couldn’t have resisted laughing even if I had wanted to, but much sadder, hard-hitting conversations too.

This one moved at a pace that felt somewhat more natural, I was surprised by how quickly time had passed when it ended.

Anyway, I’m going to delve into the review now, of the second film: Before Sunset.

Nine years have passed during which Jesse and Céline didn’t encounter each other, even if both lived in New York at the exact time, but New York is busy and densely populated, so your chances of finding one particular person in those streets are very small indeed.  

They had promised each other nine years that they would meet in December six months later in that exact same train station in Vienna.

Jesse showed up and waited for Céline, who was unable to show up due to her grandmother’s funeral, and since they hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, so they never got to see each other again.

That is until luck or fate would have it, they meet again in Paris during Jesse’s French book tour, he wrote a book about their time together.

The fateful bookstore where Jesse is is Shakespeare and Company (cinema’s and Céline’s favourite Parisian bookstore). Céline shows up and spots Jesse, and before they know it they are talking like no time has passed at all.

They’re exchanging jokes, are flattering each other and are once again having deep conversations, and when you look at them it becomes clear that they just click, they’re simply two people that seem made for one another.

It becomes fairly evident that they both still harbour deep feelings towards one another and have never properly moved on. But life continued, both have had new lovers, and Jesse is even married and has a son.

Both are despite appearances deeply unhappy in their respective relationship and marriage and confess to one another, with each other they can tell the other one literally everything.

And when they are together they are both happy and are their best selves, they bring out each other’s best qualities, you’re rooting for them to be together, you’re almost wishing for a married man to cheat on his wife.

And Linklater absolutely knows you’re thinking this and plays around with it, ending it on a fairly ambiguous note, as Céline goes into full flirty mode and treats Jesse to her best Nina Simone imitation. With her delightful attempt at an American accent, and at the end both Jesse and Céline, and the audience knows that he’s gonna miss flight (“baby you’re gonna miss that plane”,“I know”).  And that Céline is not merely flirting but seducing.

Hawke and Delpy were both fantastic in Before Sunrise, they both shined and I really hadn’t been so impressed by any acting in a romantic film in a long while, the last two times that I honestly remember being wowed like this was with Blue Valentine and Blue is the warmest colour (apparently I have something with the colour blue).

But upon watching Before Sunset I must admit that I was perhaps even more impressed with them than the first time, you could tell that the bond the two had to build while filming Before Sunrise must have grown even more, as far as I know Hawke and Delpy were never lovers in real life, but you can see that they love each other in real life as well, as friends, on a platonic level.

Which is why I think they are so great at playing lovers because they trust each other. Hawke and Delpy were in this one again both charming, unforced, natural, believable, realistic and ultimately utterly convincing, both just deliver a consummate performance.

Jesse and Céline hadn’t seen each other for a long time, so naturally, there was some awkwardness, there was even some discomfort initially, but there was also the exact amount of excitement and happiness at seeing each other again.

They act the way people that once shared something really intense and appreciated each other greatly, even fell in love but had to part ways on good terms, though, would behave, so when they see each other again all those memories flood back of course.

And It’s both exciting and overwhelming. They talk and very soon It’s as if they never were apart, you can see them fall in love all over again, they have the same dynamic: talk about everything, tease each other, and Céline once again pulls out her wonderful, sarcastic, daring somewhat spicy humour (”How are your sex problems?”,“my sex problems?!”), which Jesse more than gladly responds to, there’s brilliant stuff there. 

But then he drops a bomb: He’s married and he has a son back home in the United States, he avoids the subject of his marriage but eventually confesses that he isn’t happy, neither is Céline with her photographer boyfriend, but when Jesse and Céline are together they both light up, they come alive, they’re the love of each other’s lives and they seem to know it.

Yet they can’t just throw a grenade and blow up their respective lives, so they repress it, and for the rest of the film, you see two people who are dying to touch each other, there are looks and little touches that say a million words, and in the hands of lesser actors they could have easily looked like two horny, selfish idiots.

But they manage to make it beautiful, sexy, raw, gripping, tragic and utterly heartbreaking. It’s the first time that a film has really made me root for someone who’s married and a woman in a relationship, to cheat on each other’s partners.

They’re literally the loves of each other’s lives but have been separated by circumstances that they didn’t ask for, you’re almost naturally inclined to say, oh okay you guys deserve one last steamy night.

After that, you can go back, to the reality that makes you unhappy, and neither the French dude and the American gal has to know right? But that would be playing it dirty. I mean even if you can’t be with each other, isn’t seeing them one last time and just knowing that there’s one person on earth who really, no doubt loves you, even if there’s an ocean, a continent separating you, enough?

Hawke and Delpy capture this illicit longing, sort of forbidden love perfectly, each of their emotions, they’re expressions and body language feel spot on, they force you to feel for them and put yourself in their shoes and think about what you would do.

Linklater then frustratingly and purposely ends it with a massive and ambiguous cliffhanger, because he knows what you’re thinking.

Céline has just sung Jesse a song, that was clearly about him, and then does the Nina Simone imitation with an attempt at an American accent, that you can tell she’s purposely trying to make sound as sexy as possible, while she moves along to the song.

And usually when a woman behaves like that, we all know where It’s going, and if you’re not twelve you can almost naturally deduct what will happen next, but then again Jesse and Céline aren’t in a normal situation, it would be cheating, so maybe they went for it or maybe they didn’t…

Linklater never reveals this, at least not in this one, and at the time it literally killed me, but It’s a genius and flawless, well executed, extremely unconventional, un-Hollywood ending.

Very few times have I seen an American director venture into such territory, usually, that stuff is left to the more “hedonistic” European filmmakers.

It’s inappropriate and would offend people with extremely tight morals, but It’s real life, stuff like this happens, all the time, all over the world. I thought it was extremely brave, Linklater is a director with guts if you ask me.

As I’ve said earlier in the review, I loved the first film. But I loved the second one even more because, in both the acting and direction you get to see a progression for the better, both the actors and Linklater seemed to have gained more confidence, you could tell that he and they knew exactly what to do.

The pacing and timing of the film are near cinematic perfection in my view, every joke and every lovely or less lovely, unexpected surprise in the film is delivered at the exact right time when it has the most emotional impact.

The film moves at a perfect rhythm, not too slow but never too fast, you’re never confused and you’re never about to fall asleep either, It’s exactly right, unlike Before Sunrise, which I never found boring, but some scenes could have benefitted, if only a little from a quicker pacing.

The cinematography follows Linklater’s usual classic recipe: European city, Jesse and Céline, the camera follows them up close. But I do have to appraise Linklater for something, once again instead of opting for showing off the city, which Paris lends itself to perfectly, It’s the city of light, the city of love after all, I’ve been there three times and it is positively one of my favourite places in Europe or the world for that matter.

And most filmmakers, especially American ones, can not resist to show it off, Linklater does and instead shows off his two main character’s emotional connection, he deeply connects us with them.

What we do see of Paris, are lesser known parts of the city that aren’t shown in films so often, I honestly don’t think that the Eiffel Tower ever made an appearance.

I think but I might be going on a limb here, that the showing less known parts of Paris, could be seen almost as a symbolism of Jesse and Céline, finding and exploring new sides of each other.

The soundtrack is great, pleasant and highly atmospheric music, we’re treated to some Nina Simone which is always nice, but the highlight is the song that Julie Delpy sings for Ethan Hawke’s character, Delpy shortly after released an album of her own which by the way happens to be excellent.

In Celine’s apartment, Céline put on a CD “Just In Time” by jazz singer Nina Simone, who had died a few months before filming started. Céline animatedly tells Jesse about seeing her in concert. The scene had a special resonance for the two stars.

“I picked that song, which is my favourite song of hers,” Delpy said in an interview.“Ethan and I were supposed to see Nina Simone play in Vienna when we were shooting the first film. We never got a chance to see her, because she was too sick to get on the plane. So, later I went to see her, and I was always sad that I never got a chance to see it with him. It was kind of like a little personal reminder that we never got to see her together.”

To end the review on a quick and more uplifting note, this film is one of those rare, very special instances where the second film in a trilogy is as good as the first one or even better, my final thought was well done, Richard, bravo!