Before Sunset

I love that movie. I watched that movie for probably the hundredth time today. For the uninitiated, let me begin by giving you a brief overview. You can skip the next two paragraphs without loss of any continuity.

A twenty something American guy (Jesse) is doing what all white guys love doing. Traveling around Europe. During one of his train journeys, he meets a young French woman (Celine) who he starts talking to and hits it off really well with. Jesse and Celine spend a day in Vienna and part without exchanging phone numbers because they want the memories of the night to not fade away. They decide to meet at the same place exactly six months from then to see if they both feel exactly the same way till then. That's where "Before Sunrise" ends. I really liked that movie. It was very romantic and mushy and all of that with a very feel goody character attached to it. This was in spite of (or probably because of) the open/seemingly sad ending the movie had.

Before Sunset starts nine years later. In the interest of this post not becoming a review of before sunrise and before sunset, let me just say that Jesse and Celine meet again in Paris and spend another day together talking about their current lives and how much they remember that night in Vienna.

Like I said before, I have watched this movie several times. Each time I watch it, a different portion of the movie appeals to me. Before Sunset is a lot more cynical than its prequel and it has a very real lifey character attached to it. I really liked Ethan Hawke's Jesse. He seems to be this guy who is at a place in life where he has resigned to fate and has figured out a way to find happiness in whatever he has. He used to be a big cynic where he was trying to find the purpose of life and all that. But now after going through whatever he has gone through, he has realized that there is no point in being cynical. The only way you can actually BE happy is if you WANT to be happy. This sounds very much like all those self help books. I am just agreeing with whatever they are saying. But one of the lines in the movie was really very appealing. Jesse at one moment says, "so many of the men that I admire most, their lives were dedicated to something greater than themselves..." This reminded me of a google status message that a friend of mine had. It said "Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working". At the instant I saw it, I simply dismissed it as one of the many "funny" quotes people like to put up on status messages. But after watching the movie I started to think about that statement. Being "tired and discouraged" has some very interesting connotations here. Could it mean that work is the ONLY thing that is not tiring/discouraging?

Julie Delpy's portrayal of Celine was indeed very interesting. She seems to be a very smart, well informed, independent kind of a woman who thinks she knows exactly what she wants. I found myself being very empathetic and in many ways also attracted to her character. But honestly, I didn't like her at all! She was obviously too cynical. She seemed to be the kind of person who doesn't WANT to be happy in life. She is always complaining about how life is being unfair to her and all that. So however much you want to "help" her she would refuse to be helped. I can not imagine what living with such a person would be like! Maybe my mom was right when she said, god bestows huge responsibilities on great people!

At the end of the movie, you could either be the cynic and agree that "life sucks then you die". Or you can be the optimist and say "there are no failures in life. Just setbacks." I took the political compass test (http://www.politicalcompass.org/test) and it revealed that I am very close to the center of the axis (with a slight inclination to the right side AND the libertarian side). So I think I can justify not wanting to adopt either of the above statements (but still leaning slightly towards the former)