Before Sunset

Before Sunset (2004)
Empire 500 (2008): #110
Empire 301 (2014): Not Included
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenwriters: Richard Linklater & Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy

This is a rare and beautiful thing. A sequel that feels better than the original and entirely necessary, not a tacky, moneymaking add-on but something different and unique. The distance of 9 years between the films clearly helped, as did the obvious passion of the three main creative leads, Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, for the project. The film starts with a playful and funny reminder of the original film through the eyes of Jesse, who has published a book about it. Nine years later, the setting (Paris instead of Vienna), the format (lots and lots of conversation)  and the type of encounter remain similar, but Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) have moved on. Jesse is seemingly locked in an unhappy marriage, while Céline has been hurt numerous times in her love life, to the extent that she has given up trying. Nine years later, the characters feel wiser and more grown up than on their last outing, and the stakes and urgency feel much higher as both have made serious commitments.

My problem with the original film was despite the conversations and the characters, there felt like a lack of narrative, stakes or urgency. This film feels different and rectifies that, as it firstly is far more condensed, playing out in real time The conversations are also just a bit more personal and real, due I guess to the fact that Hawke and Delpy wrote the script themselves with Linklater. There is more tension and conflict between the two characters this time, while the central 'will they, won't they?' dilemma feels more pressing and interesting. We also know these characters already so the film has the liberty of being able to instantly go into the meat of things. For all these reasons, this film takes a dramatic step above Before Sunrise.

As the film races towards the end, another sequel feels inevitable and needed. I still haven't seen Before Midnight, but I will sometime soon, and I am looking forward to completing the Before trilogy a lot more now that I have seen this gem.

5/5 Stars

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise (1995)
Empire 500 (2008): #200
Empire 301 (2014): #233
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenwriters: Richard Linklater & Kim Krizan

Richard Linklater is unquestionably one of my favourite directors, and Boyhood and Dazed and Confused are two of my favourite films ever, so I was looking forward hugely to tackling his Before trilogy. In Linklater's films there are never any forced stakes, the world is never saved and nobody dies. They tend to be gentle and meandering chronicles of a certain point or period in somebody's life. They delight in and relish the slowly unfolding pace at which they take place, and there is no forced meaning or point other than simply being there. The nature of these films also reflect the kind of people Linklater portrays, the laid back, Generation X 'slacker' or drifter of an artistic bend, and yet not quite sure of what they want to do with their life. I write this having only seen Before Sunrise which I liked, and Before Sunset, which I loved, trying to work out why Before Sunrise didn't quite capture me, in the same way that his other films have.

The premise of Before Sunrise is basic and timeless: two strangers meet and bond overnight in a strange city. Despite this, it is clearly not a conventional film, and it is arguably little more than an extended conversation, although that doesn't detract from it at all. Pretty much the only two characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) both have their own distinct and unique personalities and the developing romance between them has several touching moments, such as listening to a song in a record shop, each of them stealing glances at each other in turn but turning away quickly, not wanting to be caught. It is a touching film with a lovely ambiguous ending, but for me, it became just a bit too boring, for want of a better word by the end. I made the mistake of watching this film with my laptop and several times my desire to browse the Internet and google something overcame my desire to watch the film. I think the problem with this film, at least in my mind is that there is quite frankly nothing besides the slightly repetitive feeling musings of Jesse and Céline. The low stakes involved aren't necessarily a problem, as Linklater himself showed in Dazed and Confused and Boyhood, but in place of high stakes I feel there needs to be something to interest the watcher, to keep him fixated and for him or her to focus upon. In Dazed and Confused for instance there are a large number of enjoyably different characters in a large number of enjoyably different situations, while in Boyhood there is simply the pure unadulterated pleasure of watching Ellar Coltrane slowly develop from a boy to a man.

In Before Sunrise however, I don't feel there is enough to maintain our interest for the whole film. It serves as an enjoyable introduction to Before Sunset which I found more easily watchable and compelling due to our preexisting knowledge of Jesse and Céline and curiosity of who they have turned into nine years down the line, a more tight and contained time frame, more tension between the two and slightly higher stakes, which I will hopefully go into more detail on in another post soon.

3/5 Stars