Before Sunrise

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Sunrise
Review: A few words on Before Sunrise- No, the two main characters never see each other again. They never forget. They cross each others minds every day and that's perfect!
The scene in the record store is worth the price of admission. They go in the listening booth to play Kath Bloom on vinyl, he wants to kiss her and she him. They don't, that was perfect.
The harpsicord dance to the Goldberg variations is perfect. At the train when he tells her he wants to see her again and she almost cries and says I didn't think you wanted to see me again. The end when they fall asleep on seperate trains to the sound of Bach, all perfect. I could go on forever..........

Rating:
Summary: Quite a romance!
Review: Simply put, this movie is amazing! I caught the last 15 minutes of it on tv a few weeks ago and that was enough to enrapture me. I finally saw the entire movie tonight and it blew me away like no other movie has done in quite some time. The plot is very believable, romantic, and sophisticated, yet simple at the same time. The dialogue between the two leads is interesting and flows naturally. Delpy and Hawke have such an electric chemistry on screen, I wonder if they had something happening off screen too. The progression of the story is fast enough to keep it interesting, yet slow enough to savor every word the characters say to each other and every camera shot. I also enjoyed the scenery shots of Vienna and on the train (travel by train in Europe is the only way to go). I am usually a finicky movie watcher, but I highly recommend Before Sunrise!

Rating:
Summary: All you need is love...
Review: Plenty of folks have already written wonderful reviews with details on story, actors, etc, so I won't add to that. Instead, I just want to say:

I watched Before Sunrise on video in 1997. Tonight, feeling a bit blue (who's not these days...), I was reading reviews for some of my fave flicks, and was completely blown away when I saw that there are close to 100 reviews of Before Sunrise, all but a few of them glowing: I thought I was the only person in the world who adores this movie, and wanted to jump for joy when realizing that there are many Sunrise fans out there. It gives me great hope for humanity to read how many people out there love this gem of a movie. There was even a guy who admits to liking mostly action-flicks, but even he loved Sunrise! How cool is that?! It's one of the most romantic movies out there and one that doesn't insult your intelligence, and it's so very different than most Hollywood romances these days. Linklater has Austrian roots, and it must have been glorious for him to shoot a movie in Vienna, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Mozart, Freud, Linklater, Hitler - well, there's always a rotten apple in the basket.

And by the way, don't even think of making a sequel - that would ruin everything!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Romantic Tale
Review: What a great movie. Like many people this was a movie that I stumbled upon to during late night channel surfing. I am not really a big fan of romantic-type movies but I decided to watch it. Wow am I glad I did.

The story begins when a young American man and a young French women meet on a train going from Budapest to Paris. Jesse, a young American man is getting off in Vienna to catch his plane back to the US, he's finishing up a vacation. Celine, the young French women is going back to Paris after visiting her grandmother in Budapest. They begin to engage in mutual conversation on the train and start to hit it off. After the train pulls into Vienna, Jesse convinces Celine to get off the train with him and check out Vienna. They spend the rest of the day and night talking and slowly growing more and more attracted to each other, they eventually fall in love.

As the movie progressed you slowly grow on and become more and more attached to the characters, they are very likeable and believable. I found myself thinking about the moment when they would inevitably have to bid farewell too each other. It's the type of movie that stays with you and you think about for days and days after. Richard Linklater did an excellent job writing and directing this movie, there very many memorable seens (if not all of them). I think my favorite seen if I had to name just one would be the fake phone conversation that they had in the restaurant, I loved that scene. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were born for these parts, they played their characters perfectly and very naturally. This is a must-see.

Rating:
Summary: Truly in love
Review: At first, I thought it's going to be one of the usual American girl/guy movies. But after several minutes I couldn't take my eyes of the screen. It's everything you ever did or felt being in love. Every little thing. I beleived every glimpse and every giggle. Actors are natural as if they live the movie. No effects, no melodrama, pure joy of two young hearts.

Rating:
Summary: Honest and Intelligent
Review: "Before Sunrise" is a beautiful little film, perhaps the best of its kind since nearly a decade- seriously, how many contemporary romantic movies can you count that are intelligent, unsappy and sweet at the same time?

The movie is directed by Richard Linklater, who sparked my interest by directing the best movie of the year, "Waking Life" and the painfully honest "Dazed and Confused". In a way, he is similar to Cameron Crowe, but Linklater is much more observational, much more intelligent, and far less sappy.

"Sunrise"'s story is a simple one- two people meet on a train, the boy invites the girl to spend a night out in town, namely Vienna. They are both on journeys, so they will only be able to be together for a day. That's it. There is no evil criminal, no terrorist kidnapping, no extraordinary event- everything just goes as usual as it would in life- which is unusual for a movie.

The movie is simply a bunch of conversations, on the couple's past, their traits, their thoughts, as they look around Vienna. Linklater doesn't use extreme camera movements to over dramatize- his camera slightly moves from time to time, but it is purely observational. Linklater's use of music is even better- there is no real score to punctuate the love scenes- Linklater knows that the words said, and the faces of the actors are enough.

A special mention of the actors must be given, as it is impossible to make such a movie without such talented people. Both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are spectacular, each blink and look is delicate, just in time and absolutely perfect. The movie could work as a silent movie. The screenplay, like every Linklater screenplay, is very literate and flows naturally from the lips of the actors.

I believe that there is a very special talent in Richard Linklater- he understands that this is a time when the "postmoderns" like David Fincher are beginning to rule, he resists their pretentious cynisism with honesty and realism. He is aware that they exist (and makes us aware that he is aware), and that he may be one too, but his goal is different; an emotional reality, as universal as it can get. When Fincher's commentaries will be have lost relevance sometime, Linklater's will always be able to be brought up. He is definetly somebody to watch for.

Rating:
Summary: "Waking Life" updates us on Jesse & Celine after Vienna....
Review: I already wrote a Before Sunrise review over a year ago, so I will not repeat myself. I still think it is a brilliant piece of work and the most honest love story I've seen. For those of you wondering if these two lovers (Hawke & Delpy) see each other again, Richard Linklater's latest film "Waking Life" has a dream sequence with Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy together in bed talking. They do not address each other by name, but Julie Delpy refers to the conversation they had in Venice about reincarnation. And Hawke makes a reference to their previous discussions also. And they act EXACTLY like Jesse & Celine would. Only now they are living together (we assume). This is a dream sequence, but Linklater slips the 5 minute scene in as special bonus for Before Sunrise fans! It's great that he felt the need to "check in" on these two, even if it may not be how things really turned out. So if you want to see Jesse & Celine together again, hunt down "Waking Life" at the theater or on DVD! Later...

Rating:
Summary: Wordy but well done - Go Linklater
Review: I am just freshly back (last night) from watching this DVD so I have had a little time to think about what to say. First, I would definitely not recommend this film for everyone who likes good movies or even just good romantic movies; this will help to explain why I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars like most people here. I'll do my best to keep this review "spoiler-free" but I make no promises. This film is extremely wordy, if the settings weren't quite so key it might make an excellent play. I think the director was aiming towards a sort of cinema verite here as we do get to spend an awful lot of time, sometimes with some rather mundane activities and dialogue, with this young couple. All in all it is an interesting and enjoyable experiment but I did find myself a little frustrated with the pacing in the last half of the film. Again, I think it was paced this way on purpose, to give you a sense of the strangeness, the lengthening (or for some, shortening) of time in situations like these. Linklater the director is no dummy and will always remain a cinema God in a way for me for his Slackers (see this one for sure) and he takes a bold idea and makes it work here where so many other directors would surely fail. I suppose I could end by saying that if you liked The English Patient you will like this film also as they both take a good amount of patience to enjoy fully. One thing that did bug me, and it is of course just a personal gripe, but Ethan Hawke has (had?) the most annoying habit of sneering, well, raising one side of his mouth when he smiled - drove me up the wall after a while. Nonetheless the acting was great, very believable.

Rating:
Summary: A Romance to Cure the Most Virulent Cynic
Review: When I heard the story line for Before Sunrise, a slacker American played by Ethan Hawke falls in love in Europe with Julie Delpy, I rolled my eyes. But this is a thoughftul and compelling movie that broke down my skeptical and cynical wall. First, the movie takes us through the awkward stages of two people going from being perfect strangers to removing their own walls and falling in love in a way that is never sappy. Using this falling-in-love motif, the director/writer Richard Linklater addresses several profound themes: the nature of time, the conflict between cynicism and romance, the obsession with death, the shortcomings of "adulthood." The dialogue between Hawke and Delpy is philosophical but never too abstract; it seems to stem from their well-drawn characters. I suppose there's a parallel between the breaking down of my own cynicism and the characters'. They have been hurt by life, have put up their walls, and, through their discussions, they have gradually removed those walls so that by the movie's end you think it's a crime if they don't fall in love and live happily ever after. But the movie is more complex than a happy ending. The movie forces you to ask if their love would survive if removed from the brief ecstasy of their single day (and night) together. Is the brevity the cause of their ecstasy? Would a life of marriage disintigrate into the mundane? The characters struggle with these questions in what is my favorite romantic movie.

Rating:
Summary: Linklater has a knack for dialogue
Review: Before Sunrise, stars Ethan Hawke as a goatied 20-something on his way to Vienna. He meets Julie Delpy and they strike up a conversation that basically lasts for 100 minutes. Thats the plot, and that is what makes it brilliant. The dialogue feels genuine, Linklater is a good director, and he certainly has the ability to purvey a realistic feel to his movies. Like his other films, Before Sunrise takes place in 24 hours. It is a dialogue-driven film rather than a plot-driven one. Hawke, who has been typecast as the cynical, poetic literate youth since Reality Bites is a likeable character, and so is the lovely Delpy.