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Nothing was Lost in Translation
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Mar 4, 2008
30
of
40 people found this review helpful
Going into the theater to see "Before Sunset", I thought I was a pretty happy guy. Hanging out with a good friend and taking it easy on a warm, sunny day off, all in order at home and work, life seemed good. Leaving the theater about an hour and a half later, my great mood made my outlook before the film seem like a deep depression.
Continuing the story of the developing relationship between American college student Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and French college student Celine (Julie Delpy) as first told in 1995's "Before Sunrise", "Before Sunset" chronicles the first meeting of the pair nine years after spending a scant one night together in Vienna. Then a promise had been made to reunite in six months and here we find out if that meeting ever took place plus much, much more.
Jesse, a fairly successful author, has written a well received fictional romance novel, a novel which starts on the night he spent with Celine but imagines a life together never spent. Finishing a 10 city in 12 day European book tour in Paris, Celine, a day worker and sometime songwriter, arrives unannounced at the bookstore near the end of his talk, having read a month earlier he would be in town. The two have a very limited amount of time before Jesse's plane leaves for the US to reestablish what could have been a wonderful union. Thus begins the most heartfelt, realistic verbal dance I've ever heard in the movies.
Both are now older, more experienced, and much wiser. Both are less willing to freely offer their hearts as when they were young. Life has not been easy for either, so this subtle dance must be performed, a tentative and cautious reaching for the person they once knew long ago.
They say good writers have an ear for natural dialogue and an almost mystical insight into human nature. If that's true, and I believe it is, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who wrote the screenplay based on characters originally created by director Richard Linklater ("Slackers", "School of Rock") and Kim Krizan, are among the best. In Jesse and Celine, they have crafted two of the most likable, realistic, charismatic and intellectually interesting people I've ever had the pleasure to encounter in 30 years of movie watching. Although Jesse and Celine have problems like anyone else, they try not to let ther troubles interfere with the world around them. They handle their problems in a mature, responsible way, and one can even feel Jesse's genuine interest in the French culture in spite of emotional issues at home. For example, Jesse is not the "Ugly American", taking his problems out on those around him and making jokes at the expense of the French. He is not bored with his surroundings and is interested when he notices little details. When ordering coffee, one could feel his respect and sincerity in attempting to get the verbage correct, and is not ridiculed when he makes a mistake. Those around Jesse return his polite respect. For her part, Celine respects the American culture (she lived and studied in New York for six years), although as an environmentalist she dosen't believe the United States has done everything it could for the environment. And in an very interesting character trait, Celine smokes cigarettes, a contrast to her activist ideals. Jesse and Celine are real people, carrying both human foibles and ideals which are not always in harmony.
Richard Linklater's direction is perfect. The film is well paced and has a great "real-time" narrative. Linklater uses tracking shots, at times up to eight minutes long, as Jesse and Celine walk and talk to the coffee shop and knows just when to cut the angle before the shot wears thin. In a sense we don't really notice, though, because the dialogue and the characters are so engaging. Further, Linklater spares us the normal travalogue shots of Paris and instead gives us a much more personal city, a Paris of sometimes unkempt, lived in neighborhood backstreets and little curio shops, an environment that keeps the characters in a wonderful close perspective.
"Before Sunset" is such a well made film that there is no reason to see "Before Sunrise" first. I hadn't, and in fact I think seeing "Before Sunset" first is better. There are moments when Jesse and Celine share a memory from that long ago night in which their recollections don't initially agree. Having not seen the first film, their disagreements were made more dramatically intriguing for me.
Jesse and Celine made me happy. They are two people with which I could share a mug of coffee and just listen to them talk. Even when they are sad, each possesses an underlying infectious life affirming optimisim. Ten minutes into this film, I was entranced by their dance and I fervently hoped that before Jesse's plane took off, they would earn each others heart just as they had earned mine.
From a script by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as interpreted through the vision of director Richard Linklater, with "Before Sunset", nothing was ambiguous, nothing was mean spirited, and certainly nothing was lost in translation. |
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