Saturday 24 April 2010

Before Sunset [2004]


-->In Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater’s brilliant sleeper hit, we got introduced to the American dude Jesse and the French belle Celine, as they spent a night in Vienna speaking to each other. Nine years later, they chance upon each other, but under completely different circumstances altogether. Jesse has written a novel that has made him a minor celebrity, but his family life is anything but happy – in fact all these years the only girl he’s ever dreamt of is Celine. Celine, on the other hand, works as an activist, and these nine years have only made her more cynical by the day; her on-and-off love life too never really helped her out. And now, as these two people start catching up on each other in the streets of Paris, slowly the layers of cynicism and detachment start getting peeled off, and we become aware of all the personal disappointments, regrets, disaffections and failures that have ensured that they remain hardly as naïve as they were during that blissful night a decade back. As with Before Sunrise, this one too keeps us completely engaged despite being (or rather, because it is) a loquacious film, thanks to the marvelous script and Linklater’s smooth and tightly controlled direction. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, too, have done the movie no harm with their absolutely wonderful on-screen chemistry, making this one of those rare sequels that manages to work so well.









Director: Richard Linklater
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama
Language: English
Country: US

10 comments:

muthu said...

Will sure try it out. :)

Shubhajit said...

Preferably watch Before Sunrise & Before Sunset back to back.

Yayaver said...

Before Sunset better than Before Snrise for me. But its end leaves me unsettled... Thanks for the review anyways.

Shubhajit said...

Thanks Yayaver for sharing your enthusiasm for the movie.

Just Another Film Buff said...

Yes, even I would say that this is a better film, although I love the previous one too. This is one film that our filmmakers could try to emulate...

Shubhajit said...

Well, I'm finding it a rather difficult task to compare the two, but they're both unique, trendsetting and very good.

Sam Juliano said...

I am in a very small minority on these films, which I found as endurance tests and not remotely to be compared with Jean Eustache or other mumblecore films that followed. But I respect mightily what you say here, and fully understand mexactly why this film has resonated with critics an daudiences. Terrific capsule, as par for the course.

Shubhajit said...

Well Sam, we don't have to agree on everything. In fact its mighty fine if we don't as that throws up far more scope to lock horns & argue. But then I've a feeling we usually end up agreeing on most films, and there goes our story arguments over tea cups right out of the window ;)

Daniel said...

I can't agree with you more here in really picking out why this film works so well, Shubhajit. I don't think I knew this sequel was coming before it arrived, so any cynicism I have about sequels didn't prevent me from seeing it. And I loved it - even that tricky ending..

Shubhajit said...

Indeed Daniel, this is one of those rare sequels that can be officially qualified as fabulous. Thanks a lot for stopping by.