Julie Delpy (Celine) & Ethan Hawke (Jesse)

Another first for me, I thought Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise was a real breath of fresh air, which is more than I can say about Ethan Hawke’s (Jesse) acting. I really enjoyed the opening scene with the violins beginning semi serene and eventually quickening their tempo, along with the shot of the tracks and from the actual train.

This has always been a fantasy of mine, which is probably why I connected to the movie the way I did. Who doesn’t want to be traveling Europe when all of a sudden a beautiful foreign woman sits across the aisle from you and basically invites you into conversation? Even if nothing were to come of this it would still be an inviting thought in my mind, I would love to engage in a conversation with a foreign woman, if not for the exotic accent, whether it be French like Celine (Julie Delpy) in this movie, or German or anything really. I feel that its always refreshing to talk to someone with a slight if any language barrier from another nation because they seem to be more engaged in the conversation, and I don’t know if that says something about us Americans or if its just crossing cultural borders that intrigues people.

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Richard Linklater showed that he can create a stunning and moving romance movie with the 1995 release Before Sunrise. Linklater (Slackers, Dazed and Confused) casts Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy into his lead roles as Jesse and Celine, travelers abroad in Europe. They meet while on the Eurorail on its way to Vienna. There Jesse will fly back to America in the morning and Celine will continue on to Paris where she will study there. The connection between the two is immediate and intense. The conversation seems so natural and full of intriguing ideas. Their conversations range from the characteristics and powers of language to sexuality and reincarnation. Much of the conversation would seem unimportant in other movies but in this one it seems to me some of the most intimate details. Some of the shots seem almost like Linklater is making the audience into a voyeur. There are scenes where Jesse and Celine try hard to not look into each others eyes and another where they try to resist the impulse of touching each other, wary of the budding chemistry between them. When the movie ends it seems too soon for their short romance to end. The last shot leaves you wanting to know whats going to happen with these two, will they ever meet again? (more…)