Before Sunrise / Before Sunset

Richard Linklater, USA, 1993/2004, 185 minutes

Before Sunrise is a film about what everyone dreams will happen to them when they go travelling: you meet an attractive (yet non-psychotic) stranger on a train, allow them to seduce you verbally and wind up having the most romantic one night fling of your life in an obscure European city. Before Sunset is the film about what everyone fantasises about when they’re in their thirties and dissatisfied: you run into 'the one that got away’, talk for hours and find you are still drawn to each other. These are films that ought to be sickening, but instead they burn with the kind of romantic intensity that hasn’t been seen since Brief Encounter. The thing I love most about both these films is how they capture two interesting people getting to know each other. The way Celine and Jesse banter and debate is endlessly engaging and never seems forced or artificial. The films have all the frisson of eavesdropping on a private conversation, but none of the boredom. Julie Delpy as Celine and Ethan Hawke as Jesse both turn in performances that feel utterly real and unselfconscious, you want to believe these characters exist.

In Before Sunrise, Jesse is an American slacker riding the train after splitting up with his girlfriend in Barcelona. Celine is a French student returning from a visit to her grandmother in Budapest. They meet, and Jesse convinces her to get off the train with him in Vienna, from which he must catch his flight back to the States the next day. They wander all over Vienna, constantly talking. Initially unable to decide whether to see each other again or whether or not they should sleep together, the film ends with their promise to meet again in six months.

Before Sunset takes place almost ten years later. Jesse has published a book about their night in Vienna and his book tour has brought him to Shakespeare and Company in Paris. As he finishes being interviewed by the press, Celine appears through the crowd. They decide to spend his last few hours in Paris together. As they move from a café to the street, to a boat, to a chauffered car it becomes apparent that while their attraction remains, both of them are much more cynical. They were both strongly affected by their night in Vienna, and by their failure to meet again six months later. Although Jesse once more has a flight to catch, he keeps devising ruses to prolong his time with Celine.

Review by Sarah Artt
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2005