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HUGE After watching
1995's Before Sunrise,
you're left with some aching questions. The biggest of
these goes something like this: "Did they get together six
months later?" This movie gives you the answer, plus some
others, and raises some very insightful, powerful, achingly
honest questions. In fact, Before Sunset makes the
human honesty of the first film seem like a youthful memory, a
fortune cookie that seems to hit home.
Before Sunset is different than Sunrise in its
format; at 80 minutes, it is practically in real time, a
conversation that lasts the actual time of the movie. The
characters, Jesse and Celine, are now 32, and the maturity of
the film follows them. The youthful, philosophical
back-and-forth of the first film is now replaced by a much more
urgent, needful attempt at more than getting to know one
another. This is an exploration of life, the paths we
choose, and the few opportunities we get to take a step back.
At its center, though, is the idea of connection. What
they missed in Sunrise, Jesse and Celine now realize: to
truly connect with someone on a deeper plane, on that
instinctual base level, is a rare and wonderful gift not to be
released easily. |
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And reconnection, when all of life's aching
twists and falls and struggles have sunk into the depths of
the soul, might be impossible once you do release it.
You're left with more questions, of course, but these
questions aren't the lighthearted bits of curiosity of
Sunrise. These are of cost and reward--the cost of
the path not chosen, and the reward of the same.
We should all own and watch both of these films, together,
apart, in order, out of order, but we should watch them.
Everyone I've shown them to has been hit on a deeper,
personal level. Much of my reaction to these movies
comes from my own experience. It seems that with these
films, that's the point. |
