Tag Archives: Before Midnight

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight – the ultimate Romantic Trilogy.

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight – the ultimate Romantic Trilogy.

written by: Souranath Banerjee.

It was June 16, 1994. On a train traveling from Budapest, a beautiful French girl Celine (Julie Delpy) meets Jesse (Ethan Hawke), a young handsome American traveller and soon enough they fall in love!

They got to spend one evening together in Vienna before Jesse took his flight back home. Celine and Jesse had each other’s company till Before Sunrise. So they decided to walk around the city and talk.

before-sunrise-poster1And this mystical romantic evening shared between Celine and Jesse is known as Before Sunrise, one of the best love stories ever made and the first of Richard Linklater‘s famous “Before” trilogy.

After Before Sunrise (1995) their followed Before Sunset (2004) and then Before Midnight (2013) in exact nine year intervals. 

In Before Sunset Celine and Jesse meet in Paris where they re-connect with each other and take a positive decision over their feelings.

And the third installment Before Midnight happens in Greece which portrays the sweet-bitter consequences that eventually follows each and every love story.

The extraordinary chemistry between Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke gets more and more enticing in each of these sequels.

It is interesting to note that on the two sequels, the director and both the lead actors have received equal screenwriting credits!

Richard Linklater, the master of experimental film making (Boyhood being another one of his ingenious projects recently released) has shot the two characters Celine and Jesse over a period of two decades to capture their evolving maturity as they age.

I guess François Truffaut was the only other director who followed a particular screen character named Antoine Doinel for a stretch of five films and over a period of 20 years. It was played by Jean-Pierre Léaud and the five films are collectively called ‘The adventures of Antoine Doinel’.

Coming back to the ‘Before’ trilogy, in all the three films the performance level of the two lead actors are simply outstanding.

In the words of the director himself ‘It’s a tribute to Ethan and Julie how well rehearsed and what good actors they are. It’s the kind of acting they don’t really give awards to because people accept it as real. It’s kind of like the apes at the  beginning of 2001 – they didn’t win best costume because they thought they were real. People think we just turn on a camera and we catch these dialogues.

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight – these films are not so called ‘mainstream’ cinema; they neither have loud comic sequences or CG dream worlds as backdrops, nor they have any eye-popping sex scenes to look forward.

And yet these films are the most critically acclaimed love stories of our times. A must watch for people who appreciate true love.

If St.Valentine was alive i bet the ‘Before’ trilogy would definitely be among his top ten list!

Boyhood (2014)

My Ratings: 4.5/5.

Boyhood is something very special.

Ok, what happens if you follow around a boy (and his family) with your camera for 12 years and then edit the best of your footage and make a film out of it?

What happens is Boyhood!

It’s a preplanned, well-scripted film shot over 45 days during a period of 12 years (2002 -2013). Wow!

A film so real and shot through such an unreal time-span that it gives you the feel of being a part of the journey with this boy Mason (Ellar Coltrane), who was 7 years old when Richard Linklater (director) started filming and 18 when he finally felt it’s time to wrap up.

A unique experiment on celluloid, though Linklater said himself that if the audience see this merely as an experiment then he has failed at his task.

And believe me Richard Linklater is probably more successful with Boyhood than in any of his previous works which includes some beautiful films like Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Bernie and of course not to forget his ‘before’ series – Before sunrise, Before sunset and the very recent Before Midnight.

And like most of his brilliant films Boyhood also doesn’t have a definite start-middle-end to it; it’s like inviting the audience to relish the voyeuristic pleasure of watching somebody’s life passing by.

Amazing natural performances and such realistic dialogues, an over-simplified storyline and that’s probably the magic of this film’s popularity.

A string of somewhat insignificant events that eventually makes an impression in our minds, the casual talks with friends and family; may be it’s bowling game with your dad or some heated conversation with your mom – after all these little memories are what we are left with in our lives.

And Boyhood is full of life.

Ellar Coltrane plays Mason (the boy), Lorelei Linklater (Richard Linklater’s daughter playing the sister), Patricia Arquette (the mom) and who else but Ethan Hawke (the dad).

Each one of these actors deserves applaud and honors for playing their parts with such conviction and for being in their characters for over such a long period of time.

It was also decided that if Richard Linklater would die during this period of 12 years, Ethan Hawke would take over the directorial duties; just a precautionary measure I guess!

Beautifully edited by Sandra Adair, Boyhood is a must watch for all you film lovers who patiently waited for it.

A wait too long but it’s worth it.