Foreign Film Friday

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A Foreign Film review by Chris White

BEFORE SUNRISE
BEFORE SUNSET

Directed by Richard Linklater

Two people talk for an entire movie. Then, almost a decade later, the same two people, playing the same characters…talk again. For another entire movie.

And both films are perfect!

American auteur Richard Linklater directs both of these unusually fresh and fascinating films, which star Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke as lovers who are just as anyone who has fantasized about falling in love with a stranger on a European train would have them be.

Both films are directed with an exquisite playfulness that keeps them smart, but not ponderous.

SUNRISE matches a broken-hearted American (Hawke) bursting with fashionable undergrad cynicism with a delicate French poetess (Delpy) who is easing into womanhood. The two fall in love, promise to meet again in six months, then part ways.

SUNSET brings them back together. Only, this time, the roles are reversed. Hawke has become the delicate one…the author of a romantic novel based on their chance encounter. Delpy plays the cynic…hardened by broken relationships and near misses, she has finally lost the sweet blush of youth.

And yet, here they are again…falling in love again. But…do they finally get together?

Aw, come on. I’m not going to tell you…see the movies!

BEFORE SUNRISE

1995 \\ Color \\ 101 min.

Castle Rock Entertainment

COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: AUSTRIA

BEFORE SUNSET

2004 \\ Color \\ 80 min.

Warner Independent Pictures

COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: FRANCE