Nicolas

9 years on from their one night affair Jesse and Celine meet at a book signing.  Unlike in the first, this film is even tighter constrained, just two hours til a flight. The film is basically in real-time aside from some smart cuts. Just like the original, every line of dialogue feels jammed with meaning and feeling. There’s less wonder and a whole lot more baggage. Each of them desperate in their own ways to share all that’s been troubling them. It’s remarkable how well these characters come alive and seamlessly carry on the torch. I can’t help but feel like the actors are really playing themselves and I’d be curious to know just how true that is. It is true that the movie is less hopeful than the first. But still it’s also true that they are not so different from how they were either. It’s not a personality that has changed but a personality shaped through experiences and the stressors of living.  Only an hour and 20 minutes this raced by and I’m left longing for more. I feel somewhat unsatisfied but that is probably more to do with how much I liked it. That’s another marvel of this, in how as a viewer you intimately feel each minute inexorably pass by and you hope for some miracle that it can go on longer just as they do.

I came into this movie with high expectations and th hope that I could be a fan of a new Pixar film. But I left feeling like this movie was mostly hollow and stood for very little.  Some of the jokes landed and some sequences had moments of emotional impact. However it felt like all the characters were very one dimensional. Had incredibly convenient changes in opinion where it suited the plot. It also felt like all the animals were there for was comedic relief without any substance of their own.  This leads me into one of my big issues, the movie has a lofty and serious theme about conservation and caring for animals but simultaneously shows animals as stupid, naive and entirely fine to kill. If you’re going to show animals, even insects, as sentient beings capable of thinking is it not psycho to straight up kill one because you can’t control your emotions. Then later ask that the son of said insect “has a heart” and “cares”.  I also felt like visually this movie was very uninteresting for most of it. The lighting was almost always just so bright and saturated it meant like the writing, everything felt toneless and deaf.  I’m kind of surprised at how positive the reception to this film is given how handwaivy the plot was, how basic the characters, its visual lack of interest and incredibly confused thematic messaging.  I really didn’t dislike the film overall it’s not offensively bad. But there is so much that is left wanting it’s hard to recommend.

Before sunrise captures the ephemeral nature of falling in love against impractical circumstances. Relationships doomed to fail from the beginning but that somehow end up feeling more stronger in the moment because of it. A double edged sword and a blessing that’s also a curse. I loved how natural the dynamic between Jesse and Celine was. How the conversations were allowed to breathe. There wasn’t a need for a flashy one liner every other line since the whole movie was a conversation. The scene with the pinball machine was so plainly elegant. Aside from a poet bum, everything was entirely plausible and common. This sets it apart from the other romances which require extraordinary circumstances to build stakes. Before sunrise took advantage of the stakes that have always been there.

Such an unsettling film.  There are more characters that act odd than there are that seem normal. The eeriness of the behaviour was amplified by the mundane symbolism of suburbia and neighbours and fire trucks and picket fences. There’s naturally the unknown that piques everyone’s interest. The movie is an exercise in what might happen if you chose to uncover some dark secrets.  So many awkwardly hilarious moments and quotable lines. Despite what felt like an okay ending I’m left wondering if everything really is quite alright.