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Helen M Jerome reviews
Before Sunset
Viewed at Vue, Leicester Square, London
Producer:
Screenplay:
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke
Cinematographer:
(Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise)
Music Score:
Julie Delpy, Nina Simone, Glover Gill
Cast:
Jesse: Ethan Hawke
Celine: Julie Delpy
Bookstore Manager: Vernon Dobtcheff
Journalist 1: Louise Lemoine Torres
Journalist 2: Rodolphe Pauly
Waitress: Mariane Plasteig
Philippe: Diabolo
Boat Attendant: Denis Evrard
Man at Grill: Albert Delpy
Woman at Courtyard: Marie Pillet
When indie director Richard Slacker¹ Linklater
pulled off the hit feelgood
Jack Black movie School of Rock with considerable aplomb, it was a bit like
discovering your favourite obscure novelist had worked on the Star Wars
screenplay. Having flexed his mainstream muscles, Linklater now does that
other Hollywood trick of making a sequel. But Before Sunset is no Spider-Man
2 or Shrek 2. This is no big, sponsored, highly-marketed franchise replete
with product placement, overpaid stars with big trailers and bigger egos. We
have waited nine long years to find out what happened to the youthful
strangers of Before Sunrise, and this is as near perfect a companion piece
to its predecessor as you could imagine. Those of us who adored the first
film which observed a brief encounter between two travellers over one
night in Vienna will feel right at home, as if catching up with old
friends over a coffee. Those who missed Sunrise (you fools!) are treated to
liberal flashbacks at the start.
To recap, the duo agreed to meet up six months after Vienna, but we soon
discover what prevented this happening. Now grown up, Jesse and Celine are
once again played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, with these outstanding
actors also collaborating on much of the dialogue for themselves and each
other. Writer Jesse in a self-referential nod to Hawke¹s own novel writing
is in Paris on the last leg of his book tour, jaded and looking forward to
returning to New York, when Celine turns up at the reading. His novel is a
thinly disguised account of their night in Vienna and she is as intrigued as
he is floored by seeing her. "I was fine until I read your fucking book!"
admits Celine.
Over the next hour the film unspooling in real time they walk around the
left bank, sit in a café, wander through a garden, travel down the Seine on
a bateau mouche, argue in a taxi and gradually reveal the gaping holes in
their lives and relationships since they parted. He is married with a young
son, but deeply unhappy. She is an environmental campaigner, currently
involved with a photojournalist, but equally unfulfilled and restless. Their
highly engaging conversation shows that they have very different memories of
their previous meeting, although Celine has also documented that night in a
song. Pithily, she comments: "Maybe we¹re only good at brief encounters,
walking around in European cities."
One would be hard-hearted not to warm to this romantic miniature of a film.
The dialogue smoulders and flares as Jesse and Celine flirt shamelessly and
rekindle their irresistible attraction. Their acting appears so naturalistic
as to that it has an almost documentary-like feel. The only remaining
question is whether a further follow-up is in the pipeline. See you in
another 10 years for Before Lunchtime perhaps?
DIRECTION
PERFORMANCES
SCREENPLAY
SOUND/MUSIC
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OVERALL
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Review copyright © Helen M Jerome 2004.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
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