Criterion, the bastion of all that is intellectual/cool/hip/legendary in film history, has just released a beautiful, extras-laden box set of the Before trilogy of movies by Richard Linklater.
A dissection of the love affair of a couple over three decades (with films released in 1995, 2004, and 2013), this small cult film has grown into a wonderfully intimate dissection of finding, losing, regaining, and questioning a romantic relationship over a large portion of a lifetime.
The first film in the series, Before Sunrise, was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it, small indie, released in January of 1995. I caught the film that winter, in a suburban Minneapolis movie theater, alone in both the theater and in my romantic life; it was quite a revelation. Being just about the same age as the two main characters in the film, and having recently spent some time in Europe in college, I felt an "experience kinship" of sorts. Let's say I was all-in for the ride.
Speaking of, our two protagonists, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) - an American visiting the Continent with a '90s Eurail pass, and Celine (Julie Delpy) - a French college student returning to Paris, meet each other by chance on a train heading toward Vienna. After a few hours of conversation on the train, they hit Vienna - Jesse's destination - and he convinces her to get off there with him and continue talking. She does, and we embark on a, now, hour-and-a-half-long film of a nearly 24-hour-long first date.
If you're not into the talkfest vibe of films like My Dinner with Andre or the underrated, largely forgotten Mindwalk (an early '90s, sort of grown-up Before Sunrise, minus the romantic element), then you might have passed on Sunrise, maybe due to the lazy press angle that it was a twentysomething grunge rom-com set in Europe. But it's so much smarter than that.
The romantic, languorous vibe of these Clinton-era youths flows through their pre-internet, pre-smartphone world. There's no Top 10 Best Sights in Vienna Buzzfeed list they're following, or texts to check, Facebook or Instagram posts to make. 1995 in the film could be 1985, or 1975 in a way; it's about talking, sharing, and bonding, but not with technology.
The two share thoughts, ideas, theories, and memories on culture, dating, religion, human interaction, etc. in a variety of locations around Vienna (restaurants, bars, parks, shops, carnival, river walk, etc.). I compared the slow awakening of their interest in each other with my awakening to similar decisions and thoughts in my head, all of us eager youths in the mid-'90s.
The lovers part the next morning with plans to meet up again six months later at the train station they're departing from, with no exchange of contact information; they're going on blind faith that they'll make this next event happen. The cliffhanger ending, as it were, is: Do they ever meet up again?
For years and years (nine to be exact), you never knew and presumed would never know the answer to a movie that ends with a question mark.
Imagine the reaction of the small cult of fans around the world when they found out Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke were making a sequel to this small romantic tale. The 2004 sequel, Before Sunset (the focus of a blog post in the very near future) answers the questions I had and poses more.
Although the subsequent two films delve deeper into these characters lives, with more lived-in, believable, and deeper performances by Delpy and Hawke (who have grown leaps and bounds in skill with each film), the first film has a naive magic that hovers around this first installment of this couple's tale.
It could be the innocence of the '90s, the rambunctiousness of early twentysomething wanderlust, or the dewy babyfaces of the hero and heroine of this romance, but Sunrise is the honeymoon period, the calm before the storm, the yearning instead of experiencing the coupledom to come. It glows.
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