I have a habit of not watching movies chronologically. I watched Star Wars EP. XI just so I could be done with the whole franchise in one movie and to be honest it did suck so I was glad. I haven’t read the first Dune book but bought the second one which works well cuz the second one ultimately destroys what the first built!

Anyway, I watched Before Sunset before watching Before Sunrise. That’s a lot of befores but somehow the movie didn’t make me feel like i couldn’t follow it. Jessey and Celine are wonderful protagonists that meet again after nine years and yes, it could have been more meaningful if I had watched those movies nine years apart as they were released but nevertheless both of these characters are so well played by their actors that it feels like you know them just by how they talk and walk around.

Which is a lot of this movie, it’s essentially a bubble-movie. A single one hour and 20 minutes capture of these characters lives who haven’t seen each other in a long time and it’s beautiful. They walk from cafes to streets and parks and the camera leisurely tracks along the entire time occasionally getting a cut to emphasize something.

I think it’s a really good sequel too, everything feels much more realistic and mature than the first time (even though I haven’t seen it) and the characters have real adult problems now but also things that they kept inside themselves for so long that are dark and sad. It also has a dramatic momentum that kicks up almost as soon as the movie starts which reminded me of Spider-Man 2, movie that pushes us into Peter’s conflicts and day-to-day drama just after the first scene.

Anyway, really glad I watched this.

  • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    17 days ago

    are you going to watch “before midnight”? it’s the third in the trilogy of these films.

  • hollowmines [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    16 days ago

    Great movies (the third one is maybe a slight step down but still pretty good in my book), what’s neatest to me about these movies is that Linklater, Delpy and Hawke developed and scripted them as a team, with the actors getting pretty much free reign to develop the characters and figure out how they’d evolve individually and as a pair across the series. Pretty different from either the “writer/director/auteur dictates” model or the “moviemaking by committee” approach that together make up the vast majority of movies.