Richard Linklater: Before Sunset
Director Richard Linklater is famous for his, what some may call, "Before Trilogy," namely ‘Before Sunrise,’ ‘Before Sunset,’ and ‘Before Midnight.’ What most people do not know, however, was when the first of these three movies was shot two decades ago, it was made as a standalone film, with no immediate plans to do a sequel.
Fortunately for us, the loyal few who dreamt of a follow-up movie to see whether Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) did meet exactly after a year they spent 'Before Sunrise' in Vienna and lived happily ever after, 'Before Sunset' was released, almost a decade later.
This is my favorite among the three because Linklater was able to deliver what I thought was an almost impossible feat, to display the range of ten years' worth of pent-up emotions between the two main characters who carry the weight of the whole film. Furthermore, it would seem unfair to say that it is only the actors who carry the expectations from this sequel because Linklater is the visionary who made it all possible.
The members of the audience who have had the privilege of watching 'Before Sunset' in theaters were treated to brilliant cinematography. Paris, the film's location, was shot in a way that made you feel the city was not just a backdrop but also the third main character who witness the long conversations of Celine and Jessie as they walk her streets.
This goes the same for Vienna and Greece in 'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Midnight' respectively. There is the running theme of time and its facets in all of these films. The film titles alone seem to lend a sense of urgency that whatever conflict Celine and Jessie will go through in the process of a two-hour film should have been resolved before sunrise, sunset, or midnight in the form of a train schedule, a flight to catch, and an overnight stay in a hotel respectively. Contrary to this notion, in each of these films, and most especially in 'Before Sunset,' the actors languidly talk and walk, with most of the shots in long takes to include the audience in both their internal (thought process) and external (body language, facial expressions) challenges in real-time.
The conversations between Delpy and Hawke feel so organic that you wonder if they were ad-libbing the whole time, talking about whatever strikes their fancy. Here lies the genius of Linklater in collaboration with Delpy and Hawke who both have writing credits in this film; there is no improvisation here. Each word uttered and every nuance in the rhythm of the dialogue was meticulously rehearsed until it was pitch-perfect.
Even the parts wherein Celine or Jessie interrupt each other in mid-sentence and effortlessly launch off to another tangent of conversation; these overlaps were timed, planned, debated upon, and as mentioned above, rehearsed, long before the shot was set up. What makes these scenes authentic is the collaborative tone that Linklater has established both in the process of making the film and on the set. The life experiences, thoughts, opinions, and beliefs that Celine and Jessie express in the film are based on the real-life experiences and personal encounters of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy which they interweaved in their writing. Therefore, when Celine exclaims, "I was in love in the idea of love," with such vulnerability, we wonder if Delpy believes this as well.
The use of space and location in juxtaposition to the dialogue is another Linklater hallmark. In 'Before Sunset,' the dialogue is tense whenever the actors are in an indoor location. When Celine and Jessie meet by coincidence after nine years, they are in a very small Parisian bookshop. There's a beat of silence before recognition sets in and we all feel as claustrophobic as Celine and Jessie are.
Thoughts run in our heads, 'should I approach or should I pretend this did not happen and leave,' it is as if the location itself boxes them in. The same goes in the scene where Jessie offers Celine a ride in his rental car with a chauffeur and suddenly the air inside the car is so thick one can slice it with a knife.
The characters steal glances at each other and Jessie gives in revealing his recurring dreams of Celine being naked and pregnant with his child or Celine passing by in a train over and over again with him waking up after in sobs while his wife lies beside him. Celine then admits that she has grown numb and that she has lost all faith in love, feeling as if Jessie has taken something away from her that night in Vienna.
This is in parallel to wide shots of the Notre Dame and Parisian landmarks aglow in the afternoon sun as Jesse and Celine take a ferry across the Seine playfully discussing what might have been if they were indeed able to meet in Vienna as they promised each other nine years ago; "Our lives would have been so much different," Jessie muses and Celine replies, "You think so," without missing a beat as if challenging the idea.
Another Linklater stamp that never fails to impress me even if it is done over and over again in the course of this whole movie (and the other two) is the ability to reflect on screen the many things that are left unsaid but are heard so loudly in many other ways. The seemingly careless but hollow-sounding laugh Celine punctuates her dialogue with when she continues, "I think we would have grown tired of each other eventually," and she looks away briefly to feel the wind on her face. Jessie's posture slumps a fraction as he answers, "Meaning, we are only good at brief encounters..." with his tone trailing away and the audience feels the need to lean forward in their chairs and try to catch whether it was a statement or a question.
Not many directors can pull off a full-length movie that blurs the line of mainstream and independent as it relies heavily on the script, the ebb and flow of the seamless dialogue that almost never lets up, and audiences leave the theater still immersed in a roller-coaster of feelings that they carry with them long after the credits have rolled.
Linklater knows exactly when this particular encounter of Celine and Jessie should draw to a close; she in the far end of her small but cozy apartment dancing while she says to Jessie in her best Nina Simone impression, "You are going to miss that plane," and he answers from a couch at the other end of the same flat while tinkering with his wedding ring, "I know."
We see what Jessie sees for a moment, the lovely view of Celine still dancing, and the scene fades to black. All of the movies in these three installments thus far have endings with no definite conclusions. Richard Linklater is the Auteur who does this not merely to whet the audience's appetite for more because, honestly, who needs a cliffhanger if the movies are spaced nine years apart. He chooses such endings because it mirrors real life.
As long as Jessie and Celine live on, there are no endings, only fleeting moments captured on film; and when we leave the theaters, we are invited by Richard Linklater to do the same, go on living, and create moments of our own.
