Before Sunset

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romance

“What if you had a second chance with the one that got away?”

Now this tagline will really catch your attention, as it did mine (thankfully). And the thanks goes to my two daughters who bought the DVDs, and who probably, much like their father, are hopelessly romantic (though they keep a stern or nonchalant façade as if to say, romance and us are like Teflon to fried eggs). But let me go back to that movie with the above-quoted tagline, before this becomes a review of my daughters’ love-life/lives (of which I am totally and absolutely uninformed about).

Before Sunset is definitely a story of romance. No further qualifications necessary. The story reprises two characters: an American named Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke, who I first saw in the movie “Dead Poet Society”), and a French woman named Celine (played by Julie Delpy, who in real-life is a French-American actress who lived in New York for sometime), in a previous movie called, “Before Sunrise*.”

Jesse and Celine meet once more, this time in Paris where Jesse is on a book tour as part of the successful launching of a book he wrote, which partly drew inspiration from their first romantic encounter in Vienna nine years ago. This new meeting gives them an opportunity to catch up on each other’s life. Jesse is now married with a son, while Celine has a long distance relationship with a guy whom she seldom sees as a result of her work that involves a lot of traveling. Soon it becomes apparent that both seem to be ill at ease with their current relationships. It is at this point of the story where a somewhat “Casa Blancaesque,” twist to their first encounter, is revealed, i.e. Jesse fulfills a promise to return to Vienna but Celine, due to a family emergency involving her grandmother, is unable to make it to the rendezvous. Having been sort of caught up in the moment, they had very little time during the first meeting to be concerned about such sundry items as home address or contact numbers, they soon “lost” each other.

This is where the movie tagline finally comes to play. What would you do, indeed, if you were given a second chance to grab a romance you once lost?

The movie’s appeal is further enhanced by the fact that it was made at a time when Hawke was just rebounding from a break-up of real-life romance with actress Uma Thurman, and also by the fact that Delpy is really a French national who, like the character in the movie, also lived in New York for a time.

While it is not such a fast or action-packed film, and as a matter of fact most scenes involve slow walks and lots of talk, the movie nevertheless manages to keep one’s attention, because the scenes and dialogue are pure pleasure to behold and listen to, i.e. you are treated to a long, leisurely walking street tour of the most romantic city on earth, while listening to a very intelligent conversation about reincarnation, love, and life in general as seen from the eyes of these two love-struck individuals trying to enjoy every single moment together, before the Sun sets.

This is one movie which requires more than just watching with your eyes to appreciate the beauty. Best of all, it is so easy for one to identify with the characters. For after all, aren’t we all romantics?

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* Before Sunrise, the first movie made nine years ago, tells the story of how two total strangers meeting by chance in a place and time chosen by none of both but by Fate alone found each other and seized those precious if fleeting moments to enjoy love. All of which happened before the Sun rose in the eastern horizon of that magnificent European city of Vienna.