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In the breathtaking follow-up to Before Sunrise, Celine tracks down Jesse, now an author, at the tail end of his book tour in Paris, with only a few hours left before he is to board a flight back home to the States. Meeting almost a decade after their short-lived romance in Vienna, the pair find their chemistry rekindled by increasingly candid exchanges about professional setbacks, marital disappointments, and the compromises of adulthood. Impelled by an urgent sense of the transience of human connection, Before Sunset remains Richard Linklater’s most seductive experiment with time’s inexorable passage and the way love can seem to stop it in its tracks. (Criterion)
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The cleverly written dialogues are brilliantly delivered by both Ethan Hawke and his partner Julie Delpy. The film avoids sentimentality and romantic clichés, it captivated me with its simplicity and naturalness, while remaining interesting every second.
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I saw it shortly after finishing Before Sunrise, and at first I was a little scared that they wouldn't be able to recreate the atmosphere. Fortunately, every sentence spoken gains meaning over time, every casual conversation takes on a different dimension, and suddenly Celine is saying, "I was fine until I read your fucking book!" and I break down into molecules just like Jesse. The second viewing elevates Richard Linklater's work to the unforgettable, and with its more mature but no less magical storytelling spirit, it manages to grab the viewer and fill them to the brim with emotions and experiences.
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I'll admit I haven't seen the first movie this one follows. But since this one only loosely follows it, it doesn't matter. I wasn't bored. I enjoyed watching them, listening to them. The whole movie I was tense about how it would end up, because sometimes the expressions the actors threw around were completely ambiguous... :-D Weaker 4*
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I have the opposite experience with Linklater's film trilogy than most other viewers. I didn't watch the first part and I gave the second a chance, but I didn't find any great enchantment in it, and it was only the last part that really interested me. With the exception of the opening scene in the bookstore, Before Sunset can be considered an endless dialogue between two people, where the scenery changes only a few times in 80 minutes. I have always liked dialogue-driven films, but here I feel that Linklater is testing the limits of my patience. The conversations between the duo in search of each other in the second part are not as narratively banal as in the first, but I don't find any depth in them by any means. Overall impression: 55%.
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CONTAINS HINTS OF SPOILERS. This is where I first noticed that the flamboyant cuteness of Celine from the first installment can be toxic, unfortunately. All the insecurities and would-be complex thought processes from the first installment begin to culminate here, and Celine unfortunately profiles as a neurotic and indecisive girl who will be dissatisfied in any circumstance. With herself, with her life, with her lack of "true, spontaneous" love, or with anything else – sadly, you can really put anything in there. I should point out that I am a man and that women may have a different opinion on this very tricky and sensitive subject, which I fully respect. But despite my personal criticisms of her toxic character here, I still found her very likable. The interaction and chemistry in her conversations with Jesse worked almost as well as in the first one, and I was still rooting for them quite a bit. I humbly have to admit though, a little less than in the first installment. It just wasn't the huge wow it was before, but I was still thoroughly entertained and devoured every word. Bravo, Mr. Linklater.
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