Jesse and Celine play a game of telephone in Before Sunrise
A couple of weeks ago
the Criterion Collection released Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and July
Delpy’s incredible series of films “The Before Trilogy” together on Blu-Ray for
the first time. I take a small amount time to reflect upon three of my all time
favorite films and what they mean to me throughout the week beginning with a look at the fantasy of Before Sunrise.
"Think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay,
and you're married. Only your marriage doesn't have that same energy that it
used to have, y'know. You start to blame your husband. You start to think about
all those guys you've met in your life and what might have happened if you'd
picked up with one of them, right? Well, I'm one of those guys. That's me
y'know, so think of this as time travel, from then, to now, to find out what
you're missing out on. See, what this really could be is a gigantic favor to
both you and your future husband to find out that you're not missing out on
anything. I'm just as big a loser as he is, totally unmotivated, totally
boring, and, uh, you made the right choice, and you're really happy." -Jesse
Before Sunrise is a film about a feeling. It’s the kind of
feeling that one imagines half delirious at 1am while lying restless in bed;
the feeling one imagines while slipping in and out of a sleepy daydream. It’s a
feeling that only lasts a minute but in that minute feels endless. The feeling
is warm and exhilarating at the same time. It provides at once a feeling of comfort
while simultaneously provoking an excitement and optimism for the future ahead.
It’s a feeling that feels inexplicable, but at the same time fundamentally
dominates the human consciousness.
The feeling of human connection is one that has been kicked
around since the dawn of time. Does it truly exist? Is it fundamental to the
human experience? Romantics and cynics bandy back and forth endlessly on its true
intention. Yet, if only even for a brief moment, most people experience the
feeling of connection to someone else. Somehow, someway, a complete stranger in
a matter of minutes, hours, or days becomes someone special.
Before Sunrise is maybe the closet any piece of filmmaking
comes to capturing that specific moment. It is hard to explain why exactly
Celine gets off the train with Jesse after just meeting him moments earlier,
yet it feels right. There is no feeling of romantic contrivance or construction.
Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy without making it overt, finds exactly what brings
his characters together. It becomes clearer throughout their night in Vienna
that for some reason, if only for the night, Jesse and Celine are meant to be
with one another. Their conversations are fluid and nuanced, the two let their
personalities flow out naturally throughout the night. The only flashes of
awkwardness exist briefly and only when the most personal of moments are shared.
Even through a variety of different contemplations, some simple, some wildly
philosophical, their personalities blend without issue.
The film plays out like a youthful dream. There is a finite
period of time for their adventure to play out, in the morning Jesse flies
back to the US and Celine takes the train to Paris, yet the night seems wistful
and endless in the moment. Their conversations are wrapped with anxiety of the
future, and the uncertainty of the present. Jesse has been riding the train
endlessly since breaking up with his girlfriend in Madrid, and Celine is
looking for some sort of romantic connection, what exactly that is she can’t be
sure. Celine is ambitious but is uncertain of her place in the world, while
Jesse feels like a lost poet looking for answers of why things have not
exactly gone the way he has expected them to. Both find solace in their sudden
connection, and create together a romantic night that is straight out of the
imagination of many a romantic person in their early 20s.
It is almost difficult to explain why the film, which is
essentially a series of conversations between two people, has as magical an
effect as it does. Yet there is something so gripping to the proceedings. The
conversation feels as real as film conversation can. The dialogue is light and spontaneous;
each individual conversation feels connected even as subject matter and tone
vary from place to place, conversation to conversation. Moments stand out,
there is a great exchange of silent looks in a listening room of a record shop,
a contemplation of past relationships over a game of pinball, and the “telephone
game.” Each moment adds layers of depth, and by the end one gets a stunning
picture of two souls lost in the strange vast landscape of youth just trying to
get out with some sort of connection at the end.
When Jesse and Celine depart without exchanging contact
information at the end of the film, the dream comes to a sudden halt. Each
return to their regularly scheduled places in life. Both vow to meet again six
moths later, but the chances of it happening seem minuscule at best. Both leave
though with that elusive feeling of connection. Wherever they end up going in
the future they will always have the memories of that evening. Jesse and
Celine will meet again nine years later at a book signing in Paris, but for the
time being all they have is mental pictures of that moment and the knowledge that,
for a fleeting romantic moment in time, they felt a connection.
