Before, during and after just doesn’t apply to this cinematic triptych as it delves deeply into one relationship over many years. We imagine the ‘before’, we wait for the ‘after’ but we spend the entire time in the ‘during’. We race our own expectations to a finish line that never quite arrives. This is an inside view to a world that many of us will recognize in part but none of us have ever seen in full. An experiential walk through the lives and loves of two people during the moments that are usually hidden behind closed doors or played out in a tune that only two very specific hearts can hear.
The recently concluded Before trilogy of movies takes us to the heights and then drops us into the depths of the relationship of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). Before Sunrise has the two twenty-somethings meeting on a train. They look. They talk. They decide to spend the night wandering the streets of Vienna together and, ostensibly, falling in love. Ah, youth. When I first saw this movie as a twenty-something myself, I admit my first reaction was, “They sure talk a lot!” Now, almost twenty years later, my reaction has evolved into “Aww, it’s so nice they talk to each other so much.” Ah, youth, indeed.
Before Sunset drags us back into their lives nine years post-youthful Viennese love waltz and transplants us to the café’d streets of Paris. Are they still in love? Have they been together the whole time? Did youthful lust and infatuation evolve into something deeper? Does singing a waltz that you wrote in honor of one night of pure love to the person you shared that one night with nearly a decade earlier win you the love of your life? Did they just leave that poor cab driver out there forever? You’ll have to watch to find out.
But, of course, there’s the third movie, Before Midnight, so we know something happened. Well, one thing that happened is that Jesse and Celine got old. (Wait a minute, if I was twenty-something when they were twenty-something and now they’re old…well, darn!) To me, this is the most real of the three films. This film takes place in Greece and is where we see the passion of youth and the connection of an actual relationship turn, perhaps, into the deeper, fully-enmeshed linking of two souls in true love. We see that, as opposed to the other types of love, true love is truly hard. The lesson here is that imperfect humans are, alas, imperfect but in that shared imperfection you just might find the other heart that sings your perfect song. I believe Jesse and Celine found it and I hope that all of you find or have found that other imperfect heart to sing you your perfect song.