Before Sunrise and Before Sunset

Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) are the first two parts in Richard Linklater’s romantic trilogy – with the third Before Midnight in cinemas right now, though I have yet to see it. They are set in the evocatively baroque alleyways of Vienna and Paris and follow the same two characters at nine year intervals, showing how they met then lost contact and reconvened. Both are moving stories and utterly convincing, largely due to the quality of the writing, far removed the damp schmaltz of most romance flicks.

The three stories concern the idiosyncratic conversations between an American man, Jesse (Ethan Hawke), and a French woman, Céline (Julie Delpy) – both in their early twenties – and their spontaneous descent into rapturous love. In the first, Before Sunrise, they are strangers on a train to Paris who simply strike up a conversation then, despite knowing very little about each other, impulsively get off together at the Austrian capital and wander through its aesthetic majesty all night, utterly beguiled by one another. They establish a quixotic agreement to spend only the single night together, forgoing all the disappointments that would inevitably arise from a haphazard long-distance relationship (he in America, she in France). It’s a saturatingly romantic decision made in the full optimistic bloom of youth, and sort of mirrors the concept set down by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam in his play ‘Axel’: two beautiful people enjoy only one blissful night in each other’s arms, before collectively drinking poison so as to preserve their perfection forever more. Before Sunrise shifts away from the Symbolist idealism of ‘Axel’ though because Linklater and Kim Krizan (the other writer) want to ground Jesse and Céline in the compromising realism of human susceptibility – they agree to waive their lovelorn pact and meet on the same platform in the Vienna train station in precisely six months. The film ends without a true resolution, without the audience knowing whether they meet again or not. It ends with the elusive hope that heralds all potential love affairs, and it’s stunning.

Before Sunrise resonates deeply as a piece of escapist cinema. The idea of spontaneity is quite an alien concept in the conservative modern world of ours, where fastidiousness is championed and organisation sought for. The notion of jumping off a train with an unknown entity without definite plans is so refreshingly dashing, an enthralling example of carpe diem, of unpredictability and excitement – something that we all crave, but are usually too anxious to seize – and the type of brashness that only the young are audacious enough to attempt.

 Nine years pass between the first film and its sequel Before Sunset, both in real and fictional time. Hawke and Delpy reprise the two central characters but with a more mature outlook on life’s mundanity. Without wishing to give too much away, Jesse and Parisienne Céline meet in ‘La Ville-Lumière’ after their failure to convene in Vienna nine years previously and smoothly reconnect with the same unerring chemistry. The structure of the sequel is altered slightly from Before Sunrise: the dialogue is one long conversation and operates in real time, with a multitude of long extended takes that follow the duo around the pretty streets and waterways of Paris. Yet the script retains the emotional depth and jarring authenticity of the first and continues to explore the psyche of both characters in such an organic and tender way that is captivating to an audience already poignantly invested in Jesse and Céline after the first instalment (and it is necessary to see the films chronologically).

Hawke and Delpy are also credited as co-writers along with Linklater and Krizan for Before Sunset. Evidently they care a great deal about their own characters and in what direction their personalities have matured; the personal attachment that the actors themselves have for Jesse and Céline lends an extra layer of plausibility and emotional weight. This rather sums up the two films: beautiful works with wads of convincing sentimentality.