Saturday 10 November 2012

Before Sunrise


Before Sunrise proves you don’t need Channing Tatum or a doomed transatlantic liner to sell heart-tugging romance, and instead delivers a love story about two young travelers (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who cross paths and decide to hang out in Vienna for one night only. By eschewing non-diegetic music and traditional plot structure, indie darling Richard Linklater limits himself to observing his protagonists chat, bicker, fall in love and reluctantly part ways by the film’s unfortunate conclusion. Authentic, well-written and far more relatable than what’s being churned out in your average rom-com, Before Sunrise is the thinking man’s romance.

5/5      

2 comments:

  1. .. agree entirely! The one very tricky part about this film is that they scripted Julie with the language of a native speaker of English. It was obvious she was struggling and some lines actually sounded like she was trying to keep them memorized. Only entirely bilinguals produce that kind of English.. and she wouldn't have a marked accent if so. This would have been even better with a Julie who spoke a more tenuous version of English.. and Ethan .. having to accomodate her "foreigness" more.

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  2. I see your point Glen and while I agree with the notion that Celine was probably a bit too "Americanised", the knowledge that Julie Delpy has been living on and off in the USA since 1990 does justify her flexible knowledge of the English language. So in a way, if she were to stress her French accent more I think that would feel forced and therefore Celine would come off as less authentic a character, considering she and Jesse are heavily based on the real-life experiences of Delpy and Ethan Hawke... does that make sense?

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