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BEFORE
SUNSET
7/10
USA
2004 : Richard LINKLATER : 80 mins
Commendably
short and beguilingly sweet (if somewhat slight) the shamelessly romantic
Before Sunset reunites Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy)
nine years after their night of passion and conversation in Vienna chronicled
in Linklater's Before Sunset. Sunrise ran 101 minutes and
covered just over 14 hours of story, while Sunset's 80 minutes
unspools in something very close to real time as the couple - briefly
glimpsed in one of the dreams that constituted Linklater's Waking
Life (2001) - walk and talk, talk and walk around Celine's native
Paris.
The long,
Steadicam-filmed, semi-improvised scenes take place in a handful of locations:
the Shakespeare & Company bookshop where novelist Jesse is promoting
his latest work; a street, where the pair discuss why they didn't meet
up as arranged six months after their first rendezvous; a cafe, where
they talk about the state of the world before turning to their own lives
and relationships aboard a bateau-mouche on the Seine and then in the
back of the limousine that's taking Jesse to the airport, followed by
a coda at Celine's flat...
To say any
more would be grossly unfair: the film unfolds at its own calm pace and
coyly keeps us guessing right up to the last minute about the resolution
(or lack of). It's slightly disappointing that Linklater doesn't make
more use of Sunrise footage showing his stars - now in their early
thirties - as fresh-faced twentysomethings, in the way that Stephen Soderbergh
deployed 60s Terence Stamp clips from Poor Cow as backstory for
The Limey.
But perhaps
he'll come up with something along those lines for the DVD. Or perhaps
we'll have to wait until next time: because there's the tantalising possibility
of a further sequel nine years down the line (After Sunset?). Delpy,
Hawke, Linklater and co-scripwriter Kim Krizan have embarked on a project
that would amount to a fictional variation on Michael Apted's 7 Up
documentaries, one that can only deepen and richen with each passing
decade.
1st August,
2004
(seen 15th July : Tyneside
Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne : press show)
by Neil
Young
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