In recent years, this rare and elite chamber has held the likes of Once, or 500 days of Summer but back in 1994 it resonated to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise.
The film showed how Ethan Hawke’s travelling American ‘Jesse’ meets French girl Celine (Julie Delpy) on a train going through Vienna and how, with twelve hours to spare before connections, they make their own connection - exploring the streets of the city together, learning as much as they can about each other and a little about themselves.
On paper, it was less than a one-line pitch of the ultimate walking-and-talking variety that even Aaron Sorkin might have thought was too wordy, but on screen in perfectly captured the kind of encounter that poets live for and of which young people dream. By the time that Jesse and Celine part ways, promising to find each other again at the Eiffel Tower in six months’ time, you don’t really need to know whether they did. The realist says they didn’t but retained the perfect memory of a brief encounter, the optimist says they reunited and lived happily ever after. Either way pays homage to the hostage heart.
In short, it was the film in a universe of opportunistic fast-buckery that cried out for a sequel NOT to be made. You can’t go home again, even if it’s a home cinema.
So when a sequel, Before Sunset, did transpire, I avoided it like the plague. A little like the subject-matter itself, I quietly decided that it was better to keep the memory intact… that even with Delpy, Hawke and Linklater returning, that I’d always have Vienna.
However with the screening of a third film, Before Midnight, scheduled for an event I was to attend, it seemed that I had no choice but to bring myself up to date. The older, slightly more cynical me picked up a DVD of ‘Sunset’ and primed myself to be disappointed. Fortunately despite (like the couple) being older and more buffeted by time, there was still much to like. The conversations might seem a bit pretentious, but like those very few people you meet in life and do not see for years and then pick up as if you haven’t missed a beat, the film walks a deft line between that optimistic and realistic boulevard. Told in almost real time, the couple meet again at a Parisian book-signing and cram the past decade of their lives into a cup of coffee in a café and a stroll through the back-streets of Paris and the banks of the Seine. Maybe it was the touch of realism that bordered the magic or simply the Parisian locations, including Shakespeare and Company, for which I have my own fond memories, but by the time the credits rolled again, I was glad to have seen it. Linklater leaves us on an only slightly less ambiguous promise of what may come next, but I’d have been happy to leave it there.
This new chapter is less about the ambiguous romantic nature of our star-crossed couple and more about the realities that come after romance. Celine and Jesse are now firmly a couple with twin daughters and coming to the end of an almost idealistic summer at a writer’s retreat in Greece. But as their time to leave draws near and Jesse waves goodbye to his son who has visited from America, there’s an assessment not just of what they have, but of what they gave up for each other.
Once again this is a walking/talking movie and your mileage may vary accordingly as to how much that entertains. In truth this is a film for those who have already invested in the couple – who have grown up charting their story and possibly observing parallels to real life.
The script, by Linklater and his two main stars, is free-flowing, partly improvised and sometimes over-analytical as it contemplates it’s own sun-tanned navel. But there is the home-truth that romance - particularly the long-distance kind - has changed. Comparing themselves to another young couple, Jesse and Celine note that if they were to meet today, their story wouldn’t have progressed the same way, that they’d be facebooking, skypeing and able to have electronic facetime… but that while physical separation can be overcome, the expectations of younger couples is to enjoy the moment and not necessarily even look for the life-long happy marriage.
Given that I’ve also spent time on Greek islands, the backdrop once again resonates for me and while I came out of the screening still wondering if I’d have preferred to leave the couple on the banks of the Seine, I didn’t feel spoiled by our latest peak into their lives.
Nicely observed if occasionally self-indulgent, the film neatly simply charts the ebb and flow. The dialogue may have us taking sides towards the end, feeling almost like a stage-play (and is it sexist to say I sided with Jesse rather than Celine's point of view towards the end?) Perhaps, though, this is where we should leave them for a few more decades at least – not taking them or ourselves for granted, but also without scrutinising every facet until the original ethereal magic is gone...
9/10
BEFORE MIDNIGHT (15)
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Director: Richard Linklater
Running time: 109 minutes
Released by: Sony Pictures
Out: Now
