Before Sunrise
Sep. 12th, 2013 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerBefore Sunrise reminded me of Cairo Time. Both have a slow, meandering pace, and a tight focus on two people who live far apart and, having met, fall a little in love as they drift together through a city. In Cairo Time, Juliette and Tareq rarely seem to say what they’re thinking, while in Before Sunset, Celine and Jesse attempt to share everything they’re thinking; but in both cases, the characters remain interestingly opaque.
Juliet and Tareq know, perhaps, that words can only say so much: Celine and Jesse still hope that words can say everything. Perhaps surprising, given that its characters are so much younger, Before Sunrise is the more cynical movie. But perhaps it’s because Celine and Jesse are so much younger, so much more uncertain of themselves, and still fighting against the fact that life seems so resolutely imperfect.
I don’t mean the big injustices of the world; I mean the fact that experience is so rarely picture-perfect, that while dreams may come true, they do so because we fight for them, not because they’ve been granted. As Jesse puts it:
"If I could just accept the fact that my life was supposed to be difficult, that's what's to be expected, then I might not get so pissed off about it, and I'd just be glad when something nice happens."
But he can’t just accept it. This is one of the reasons they click together so well: they’re both at this moment of disillusionment, and they’re both thoughtful enough to want and even need someone to discuss it with.
But it’s a good thing that circumstance means they can’t be together long-term. In the long run in the workaday world their combined cynicism would feed on each other. It would have to be so: that’s how Jesse, in particular, believes relationships work, a long slow slide into disillusionment, and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But in the meantime, this bitter understanding of the world gives a feeling of transcendence to their night wandering Vienna: this is as close to human connection as they believe they can have. They want to be able to enjoy it for what it is, a soap bubble outside of time, but unlike Juliette and Tareq, who both have lives and places to go back to, they can’t help yearning after more.
It's a good movie - they're both good movies. Well worth seeing.
Juliet and Tareq know, perhaps, that words can only say so much: Celine and Jesse still hope that words can say everything. Perhaps surprising, given that its characters are so much younger, Before Sunrise is the more cynical movie. But perhaps it’s because Celine and Jesse are so much younger, so much more uncertain of themselves, and still fighting against the fact that life seems so resolutely imperfect.
I don’t mean the big injustices of the world; I mean the fact that experience is so rarely picture-perfect, that while dreams may come true, they do so because we fight for them, not because they’ve been granted. As Jesse puts it:
"If I could just accept the fact that my life was supposed to be difficult, that's what's to be expected, then I might not get so pissed off about it, and I'd just be glad when something nice happens."
But he can’t just accept it. This is one of the reasons they click together so well: they’re both at this moment of disillusionment, and they’re both thoughtful enough to want and even need someone to discuss it with.
But it’s a good thing that circumstance means they can’t be together long-term. In the long run in the workaday world their combined cynicism would feed on each other. It would have to be so: that’s how Jesse, in particular, believes relationships work, a long slow slide into disillusionment, and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But in the meantime, this bitter understanding of the world gives a feeling of transcendence to their night wandering Vienna: this is as close to human connection as they believe they can have. They want to be able to enjoy it for what it is, a soap bubble outside of time, but unlike Juliette and Tareq, who both have lives and places to go back to, they can’t help yearning after more.
It's a good movie - they're both good movies. Well worth seeing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-12 02:45 pm (UTC)Isn't there another movie, a sequel [checks Internet]: yes--Before Sunset, apparently set nine years later. I wonder how they change in that time.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-12 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 12:14 pm (UTC)I think I interpreted the characters as being slightly less cynical than you did... perhaps because they are focused so on their own experiences rather than the big injustices of the world (Interestingly, those big injustices are discussed in the sequel), or perhaps there's something picture-perfect about Before Sunrise which I found balanced out their more cynical observations. (Or because I now can't help but compare Before Sunrise to Before Sunset. I'm not really sure.)
I'm now curious about Cairo Time.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-14 01:21 pm (UTC)Which is probably wise, given that they have just met and really don't know each other all that well, despite their self-disclosures.
Cynical might not be the best word. They seem sad and lonely, and they're trying something that they know won't quite work to get around that.
I hope you get a chance to see Cairo Time. It's an unusual movie.