Review: Before Sunrise (1995)

I was searching around the other night for something to watch and finally gave into that old standby - the top 100 “of all time” list.  The main problem with those lists is that you rarely find one that caters to your own personal tastes.  While browsing, I learned that Rotten Tomatoes has their very own Top 100, based on the ratings given on that site.  Of course, the #1 on the list is Toy Story 2, so I have to doubt the reliability of the list somewhat, but many of the films in question were ones that I had enjoyed.  Instead of grabbing something new to watch, however, I went back and rewatched a flick I remembered enjoying quite a bit - Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise.

The story of the movie is very simple. Two people, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet while on a train to Vienna.  Both are on their way somewhere else and have to leave at sunrise.  They decide to spend what time they have together, walking through Vienna and talking about whatever crosses their mind. It is this simplicity, however, that really brings out the excellence of this film.

With only 12 hours to interact, the pair has very little time in which to get to know each other.  Thanks to the writing of the film, the conversations come across as very realistic, touching on all sorts of subjects that people might speak of.  Since they both have no expectations and will likely never see each other again, they speak honestly of themselves.  In this, we see how they reflect each other with their first impressions and how one person’s view of the other is often different from their own self-perception.

Before Sunrise asks the question of the viewer of what they might tell someone if they knew they’d only see them for a short period of time.  It also explores the nature of love and whether 12 hours is long enough to really understand someone on that level.  For what reasons do people fall in love and, perhaps more importantly, for what reasons do they refuse that love?  In the end, the movie challenges the viewer to think about how powerful love is in the long run.  With two amazing performances from the leads, Before Sunrise is proof that a movie doesn’t need loads of money to be excellent.

This film was followed up more recently by the sequel, Before Sunset (2004), which carries on eight years later, but it doesn’t quite measure up to the quite simplicity that makes the first so compelling.  Apparently, they just finished a third installment as well, called Before Midnight (2013), which premiered in January of this year.  I’ll have to check that one out and get back to you on how Linklater finishes up the now-trilogy.  Until then, if you haven’t seen this movie and like deep explorations of self-perception and romance, check out Before Sunrise.

Before Sunrise poster courtesy of rakuten.com