FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
Directed by: Richard Linklater. Produced by: Anne Walker-McBay. Written by: Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke. Director of Photography: Lee Daniel. Edited by: Sandra Adair. Released by: Warner Independent Pictures. Country of Origin: USA. 80 min. Rated: R. With: Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy.
Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have another romantic - yet rueful - brief encounter, this time in Paris. They reprise their roles from Before Sunrise (1995), a
Gen-X’er Summertime romance set in Vienna, where, departing at the train station, they
promised to reunite exactly six months later. (To lessen potential disappointment, they
exchanged no personal information.) Nine years later, Jesse is now an author on a book-signing
tour at the Shakespeare & Company bookstore. He is stopped in his tracks when he sees Celine in
the crowd. The question that hovers in the air is whether they rendezvoused again in
Vienna.
As in the previous film, the dialogue often resembles an articulate and philosophical therapy
session: she - “Memory is a wonderful thing if you don’t have to remember the past;” he - “If
somebody were to touch me, I would dissolve into molecules.” There’s little they don’t know
of each other. As before, there’s a lot of talk and very little action. Jesse is much more
optimistic, while she, “an angry, manic-depressive activist,” has come to believe from
experience that it is better not to have too much hope. Filmed mostly in long takes, as in
Before Sunrise, the focus is on their interactions, with the sights and sounds of Paris in the
background. Although much of their conversations seem to come out of left field and don’t quite
flow from one subject to the next, both leads share a loose, jovial camaraderie. Yet, the most
moving moments are their silent reactions. Because their relationship has already been consummated,
the sequel doesn’t have the built-in tension of its predecessor. But thanks to the actors' chemistry and
Paris, Before Sunset has an irresistible pull. Kent Turner
|