before sunset

after months of waiting, before sunset was finally released in theatres here in baguio. well it's about damn time i tell you. the movie poster has been hanging on the walls of the mall for months, and for the longest time had the sign "coming soon" at its lower right hand corner.

so did i go see it? of course i did. you think i'm some kind of idiot or something, raving about a movie for so long, then not go see it? yeah, i watched it last night. alone? with my wife of course.

so how was it you ask... like i said in my post way back in october... before sunrise blew me away... and the sequel was no different.

to say that i loved the movie would be a total injustice and a severe understatement. what i loved more were the characters, jesse and celine. that is how each and every great movie should be made, character driven, story driven. in a nutshell, the characters supercede the movie simply because they are the movie, they are the story, nothing more, nothing less.

before sunset was also a fitting end for my day yesterday. yesterday was tough i tell you. it was an emotional rollercoaster. i went from being perky and happy, to frisky and agitated, to down and depressed, to confused and dumbfounded, to just plain numb. then i saw the movie and everything was alright again.

going back to the characters, they were both amazing. it was like they really got nine years older. their spontainety and their love for the unrehearsed are all still there. though toned down a bit. maybe because they were older.

what happened? well, the movie starts with jesse (ethan hawke) in a bookshop in paris promoting his book, it was the last stop of his tour before going back to new york. the book, by the way, was all about their story... his and celine's (julie delpy) and that 14-hour relationship they shared in vienna nine years ago. it was amazing how the director (richard linklater) was able to inject snippets of the original movie into the dialogue as jesse was explaining his book to the french press. for those of us who were able to watch.. and connect.. with the first movie, the flashing scenes were just a rush of emotions. honestly, i felt like i was feeling what jesse wallace was feeling. then at the corner of his eye, there she was, celine.

so after jesse's mini presscon was wrapped up, the two got together and did what they do best... no not sex you dimwit.. talk. they conversed. they reconnected. they had an engaging free flow exhange of ideas, thoughts, and of course, emotions. although they did talk about sex more in this film than the first one, it was excusable. i mean c'mon, they had sex nine years ago. anyway...

so they navigated through paris, had a brief coffee break, rode on a boat, and rediscovered themselves. jesse admitted that he wrote the book as a sort of a way to find celine, and he also admitted that he showed up six months after on that exact spot where they promised to see each other after that night in vienna. celine on the other hand admitted that she had failing relationships one after the other ever since they met because she never felt that connection with anyone else other than jesse. still, both of them were questioning the decision they made nine years ago, on why they hadn't exchanged numbers. they were young, stupid, and romantic then. now they're older, they start to evaluate the cause and effect of their past choices. both of them thought things could've been significantly different had they exchanged numbers nine years ago. what a bummer.

the movie ended with both of them in celine's apartment. jesse was sitting on the couch drinking tea, while celine was dancing to kath bloom's (was that kath bloom?) song "come here." celine teasingly said/suggested to jesse, "you are going to miss your flight." and jesse said with a smirk on his face, "i know."

like the first movie, the ending was never really clear. it was left hanging in the air for hopeless romantics like us to draw up the ending ourselves. it was suppose to be about closure, about second chances, and what could've beens... i guess it was. but for me it was about reality.

i'm out.