Before Sunset



by Shari L. Rosenblum

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
--W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

On a summer's day nine years ago, aboard a train passing through Vienna, a young man on his way home to Texas met a young woman on her way home to Paris and had the spontaneous notion to invite her to share his last day -- and night -- in Europe. As the two walked and talked through the streets of the city, past landmarks famous from literature and film, they spoke of sex and romance and cultural differences and shared moments of music and poetry, at times pretentious and at times profound. It was clear they were falling in love -- but for a day, or for a lifetime, they could not know; how could they know? As the next day broke, they separated -- she to catch her train, he, his plane -- and though they did not exchange last names or addresses, they promised to meet again in this place, six months to the day.

That was the substance of Richard Linklater's 1995 release, Before Sunrise, a love story in dialogue and 3/4 time that seemed to test just how romantic its audience was. Did we believe that Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) would keep that date? Some thought they would; I was certain they would not, that I did not want them to. Did we have faith in the staying power of their passion passagère? Some people did; I did not. I felt certain that their reaching back into the past would dampen their dream, impose a leaden insistence on a light and lovely memory. And so Before Sunset is a sequel I hoped would never be. But I was wrong.

An inspired second chapter, Before Sunset is a collaborative writing effort from director Linklater and the two stars; in it, we learn that everyone was wrong, and right. Nearly a decade has passed, and Jesse, ever the more obviously sentimental of the two, has just published a novel that has a familiar ring: the story of a man, a woman, and a single day and night. His work is entitled This Time, and critics at his Paris reading, on the last leg of his book tour, want to know if it is autobiographical (quick flashbacks to that earlier day assure the viewer that it is) and whether he believes there ever was another -- another time, another day, another meeting. Wistful in his evasions, Jesse leaves the answer to their imaginings, and then looks up to catch a glimpse of Céline through the bookstore window.

We discover then what his critics may still be wondering: Jesse and Céline did not make their date on that December day in 1994, but they have stayed in each other's minds, as they have stayed in ours: an almost, might-have-been, if-only romantic ideal. Another summer's day, they -- now both older and more settled in their lives apart -- find in the only city that can rival Vienna for its magic, their chance to find each other again, to voice their hopes and their regrets, to chase the fantasy further than they dared before. With possibility less assured (the real world's obligations more weighted upon them) in hours palpably more fleeting than their first (Jesse is scheduled to be at the airport in just over an hour) they cross Paris together and they talk.

The film unfolds with their conversation, in real time. Eighty minutes of real-time conversation to build from tentative to self-assured -- and to take us with them. The space of years between their brief encounter and their second chance is captured and conveyed through subtle movements and character shifts -- the altered look of the protagonists not just evident, but made meaningful (Céline notes early on, for example, that the permanent crease of Jesse's furrowed brow looks like a scar). Céline's casual flirtation has given way to a more protective veneer -- denying the angers, the hurt, the needs that she reveals with stolen glances, half-caresses and expressed self-doubts. Jesse's urgency comes through his resignation to a life that he fell into open-eyed, but heart resistant.

Each is taunted by the nearnesses they missed, the lost opportunities just now discovered. Their conversation is at first restrained, awkward, and self-censored, but the connection between echoes through it as it digs deeper, cuts sharper, and has them baring themselves in spite of themselves. There is displaced vulgarity and repressed sensitivity -- under and overstatement. Linklater's direction is sublime, and Hawke and Delpy are dead on. There is something so real, so natural in the way that they relate to each other, embody their characters -- their performances mature, complex, complete -- that the viewer feels like a voyeur -- an unseen presence watching, overhearing, listening in, sharing vicariously in the frustrations, the doubts, and the anticipation.

Before Sunrise was named for its literal and literary reaches -- playing out until the rise of dawn on June 16th , not just Bloomsday, but the date on which James Joyce had his first date with Nora, and sharing its title with Joyce's translation of a Gerhart Hauptmann play. Before Sunset -- cleverly, poetically -- reflects the moment before the close, before the sun goes down -- a moment to be sung, danced to, swayed to, shared, just in time.

It is not to be missed.

©2004 Shari L. Rosenblum
CineScene