Once More, With Feeling
Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset is a terrific film, no question, a vital addition to the canon of classic movie romances (think: Murnau’s Sunrise, Lubitsch’s Ninotchka, Lean’s Brief Encounter, Wong’s In the Mood for Love). But for a certain generation of viewers, who first watched 1995’s Before Sunrise at an impressionable age, it was also a bona fide event movie. You can have your Spider-Man and X-Men—no film sequel has commanded so much of my attention as the developing saga of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy).
The reason for this, I suppose, is that Linklater’s French-American couple (who also popped up for a pleasant surprise in Waking Life) serve as a sort of measure for where we—that is, those of us who projected something of ourselves onto the pair in the original film—are in the world right now. Like a fictional version of Michael Apted’s Up series, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are movies as de facto time capsules. We laugh now when we look back at Hawke’s greasy coif in the first movie, but, really, how many of us didn’t go overboard with the mousse a time or two? Or, more importantly, how many of us watched Sunrise and didn’t secretly—or not so secretly—hope to travel abroad and meet their charmingly foreign-accented soulmate? The fact that this member of the Before Sunrise generation ended up marrying a smart, funny, gorgeous foreigner, after sharing a too-brief time together in a city far from home, is probably neither here nor there, except that Linklater’s movies couldn’t help but cross my mind.
But I digress. The most transcendent scene in the nine-years-later sequel arrives near the end of the film. It’s one of cinema’s great blink-and-you-miss-it moments. After hopping aboard a tourist boat on the Sienne, Jesse (in Paris for the last stop on his tour of Europe, promoting the novel he wrote about the night he spent with Celine in Vienna) and Celine meet up with the former’s driver at the dock. He offers her a ride to her apartment. She protests, insisting that she’ll take the Metro and that he’ll end up missing his flight. Jesse flashes one of those no-really-it’s-not-a-problem-now-come-on-get-in-the-car smiles. Celine acquiesces.
Once in the SUV together, small talk quickly gives way to discussion of disappointment and regrets. This is not necessarily a new turn of events. While on the river, Jesse asked point blank, “Oh, God, why weren’t you there in Vienna,” and confessed of his marriage that he now feels like he’s “running a small nursery with someone I used to date.” Here, though, Celine’s tone is discernibly bitter as she lets it all out. She says that men date her and then get hitched, later thanking her for teaching them about maturity and love. “Why couldn’t they ask me to marry them?” she blurts, “I would have said no, but they could have at least asked!” She orders the driver to pull over and let her out, just after admitting that she was fine before she came across Jesse’s book.
He calms her down, and assures her that his life is no bed of roses either. I was reminded here of the penultimate scene in the first movie. Lying down semi-drunk under the stars, Celine tells Jesse that she doesn’t think they should make love since they’re not going to meet again (a few scenes earlier, the pair had agreed that limiting their affair to one night was for the best.) He doesn’t miss a beat: “Then let’s see each other again.” It’s clearly what she wants to hear, and Hawke, for a split-second, rivals Groucho Marx for comic timing. Flash forward nearly a decade, and Jesse is again trying to tell Celine what he thinks she wants to hear. This time, however, his attempt carries the weight of catharsis; like a long deep breath, he’s just getting it off his chest.
Get ready, hold off on that bathroom break, the moment’s coming soon: Jesse details the dreams that continue to haunt him. In one, Celine is in bed next to him, naked and pregnant, and he reaches down to touch her ankle—at which point, Jesse confides, he wakes up crying, incapable of being comforted by his wife. As he stares out the car window, she reaches over to touch his hair. But then he turns his head back toward her, and she abruptly jerks her hand back. It’s an impulse stopped short, a key suggestion in a movie that’s all about eroding surfaces.
Initially, their reunion is marked by amicable chit chat, the former lovers clearly trying to keep up appearances of security and confidence. Celine discusses her environmental work and photographer boyfriend. When she gets a tad huffy enumerating all the problems in the world today, Jesse deflates the argument, quipping, “I don’t have a single publisher in the whole Asian market.” During the ride to her apartment, the bottom falls out. Both drop any pretense of politeness—this is personal. Celine’s retracted gesture is the heartbreaking climax to this exquisitely rendered behavioral arc. Whether or not things turns happily for Jesse and Celine—sure, he may “miss that plane,” but who knows if he won’t just catch a later flight, much less leave his wife for good—this small impulse affirms that there’s something unshakable there, and that love is very much a force of nature.
Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset is a terrific film, no question, a vital addition to the canon of classic movie romances (think: Murnau’s Sunrise, Lubitsch’s Ninotchka, Lean’s Brief Encounter, Wong’s In the Mood for Love). But for a certain generation of viewers, who first watched 1995’s Before Sunrise at an impressionable age, it was also a bona fide event movie. You can have your Spider-Man and X-Men—no film sequel has commanded so much of my attention as the developing saga of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy).
The reason for this, I suppose, is that Linklater’s French-American couple (who also popped up for a pleasant surprise in Waking Life) serve as a sort of measure for where we—that is, those of us who projected something of ourselves onto the pair in the original film—are in the world right now. Like a fictional version of Michael Apted’s Up series, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are movies as de facto time capsules. We laugh now when we look back at Hawke’s greasy coif in the first movie, but, really, how many of us didn’t go overboard with the mousse a time or two? Or, more importantly, how many of us watched Sunrise and didn’t secretly—or not so secretly—hope to travel abroad and meet their charmingly foreign-accented soulmate? The fact that this member of the Before Sunrise generation ended up marrying a smart, funny, gorgeous foreigner, after sharing a too-brief time together in a city far from home, is probably neither here nor there, except that Linklater’s movies couldn’t help but cross my mind.
But I digress. The most transcendent scene in the nine-years-later sequel arrives near the end of the film. It’s one of cinema’s great blink-and-you-miss-it moments. After hopping aboard a tourist boat on the Sienne, Jesse (in Paris for the last stop on his tour of Europe, promoting the novel he wrote about the night he spent with Celine in Vienna) and Celine meet up with the former’s driver at the dock. He offers her a ride to her apartment. She protests, insisting that she’ll take the Metro and that he’ll end up missing his flight. Jesse flashes one of those no-really-it’s-not-a-problem-now-come-on-get-in-the-car smiles. Celine acquiesces.
Once in the SUV together, small talk quickly gives way to discussion of disappointment and regrets. This is not necessarily a new turn of events. While on the river, Jesse asked point blank, “Oh, God, why weren’t you there in Vienna,” and confessed of his marriage that he now feels like he’s “running a small nursery with someone I used to date.” Here, though, Celine’s tone is discernibly bitter as she lets it all out. She says that men date her and then get hitched, later thanking her for teaching them about maturity and love. “Why couldn’t they ask me to marry them?” she blurts, “I would have said no, but they could have at least asked!” She orders the driver to pull over and let her out, just after admitting that she was fine before she came across Jesse’s book.
He calms her down, and assures her that his life is no bed of roses either. I was reminded here of the penultimate scene in the first movie. Lying down semi-drunk under the stars, Celine tells Jesse that she doesn’t think they should make love since they’re not going to meet again (a few scenes earlier, the pair had agreed that limiting their affair to one night was for the best.) He doesn’t miss a beat: “Then let’s see each other again.” It’s clearly what she wants to hear, and Hawke, for a split-second, rivals Groucho Marx for comic timing. Flash forward nearly a decade, and Jesse is again trying to tell Celine what he thinks she wants to hear. This time, however, his attempt carries the weight of catharsis; like a long deep breath, he’s just getting it off his chest.
Get ready, hold off on that bathroom break, the moment’s coming soon: Jesse details the dreams that continue to haunt him. In one, Celine is in bed next to him, naked and pregnant, and he reaches down to touch her ankle—at which point, Jesse confides, he wakes up crying, incapable of being comforted by his wife. As he stares out the car window, she reaches over to touch his hair. But then he turns his head back toward her, and she abruptly jerks her hand back. It’s an impulse stopped short, a key suggestion in a movie that’s all about eroding surfaces.
Initially, their reunion is marked by amicable chit chat, the former lovers clearly trying to keep up appearances of security and confidence. Celine discusses her environmental work and photographer boyfriend. When she gets a tad huffy enumerating all the problems in the world today, Jesse deflates the argument, quipping, “I don’t have a single publisher in the whole Asian market.” During the ride to her apartment, the bottom falls out. Both drop any pretense of politeness—this is personal. Celine’s retracted gesture is the heartbreaking climax to this exquisitely rendered behavioral arc. Whether or not things turns happily for Jesse and Celine—sure, he may “miss that plane,” but who knows if he won’t just catch a later flight, much less leave his wife for good—this small impulse affirms that there’s something unshakable there, and that love is very much a force of nature.
posted by Josh at 9:01 AM
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