I was crushed when I first heard about the existence of Before Sunrise, the movie. It was what I thought nobody had done properly before. I had always had long, meandering conversations with my closest friends and they were my favorite things about life. And I always thought that if I ever made a movie, it would be about long conversations. [1] It seemed like something nobody had done before, at least to my ignorant non-movie-watching self.
And then I discovered that there was this guy Richard Linklater, and that he basically made the perfect movie that I always fantasized about making. And then he did it again, 9 years later, and 9 years again after that, and he did AGAIN with the same kid over a decade, year after year after year. What a cinematic treat. What a work of art. This is one for the ages, one that I think is worth watching and rewatching and rewatching over and over again. This is one that’s condensed with so much experience and so much insight and perspective, it’s like reading 20-30 good books all together.
Spoilers ahead, read this after watching.
I enjoyed the darkroom chat that Mason had with his photography teacher. (That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I look back on the film. The second would be the supervisor he had at work.) You never see the guy ever again after that, but he’s such a full character. You don’t know very much about the rest of his life, but you know he cares. And you know that one of the most beautiful things about life is encountering strangers who give a damn, beyond what they’re obligated to. [2]
I like how Linklater included many such moments. All the different people in Mason’s life trying to tell him how it is, how things are, what you ought to worry about, what you ought to look out for, what you ought to do, etc. And how there are so many different perspectives and you can’t quite make all of them completely synchronous, but that’s okay. That’s just the way it is.
I enjoyed (uncomfortably) all the conflict, the breakdowns, the breakups. I feel like we never address those things enough in daily life. We pretend that families are somehow perfect and pretty when they’re not. They’re messy, ugly and things can go horribly wrong. People who are supposed to take care of you can be abusive and damaging. I like that Mason’s mum got all messed up and had to yell at her kids a couple of times.
I liked that there were people in the background, like that guy talking to himself about celestial bodies and 14,000 years, and that there were adults in the kitchen talking about housing and tax and the like, and bills.
I love all the little characters. I love that the septic pipe kid went on to get educated and do well in life, it’s a reminder that little things can go a long, long way. And make all the difference to somebody. I love that Ethan Hawke’s character grew up, matured and became a responsible good guy- while the psychology professor degenerated into an openly drinking waste of space. I wonder what happened to his kids.
I liked that sometimes I found Mason childish and annoying, like when he was upset about the car, and I liked that he interacted with other flawed, broken people. I cringed when the boys in the abandoned house were being blatantly sexist and spouting patriarchal bullshit. I liked that Mason was relatively decent to the girls in his life despite it. I like that all the characters were so beautiful and broken and human all at once. In this regard, it reminds of reading Balzac’s Lost Illusions, which is my favorite book so far. Even the good guys seem like the overdo things, everybody has their little odd quirks, you root for everyone and you find them annoying at some point… just like real life. It takes a lot of skill to capture all of this, and I admire Linklater a lot for that.
What a gift to give to the world. I think I’ll be making it a point to watch this movie again every other year or so. I’ve been doing that with Before Sunrise and it’s been enriching for me. [3]
Final note- anybody who enjoys Boyhood will almost definitely enjoy the Before Sunrise trilogy as well as the The Fosters, th
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Notes:
[1] I’ve always been curious about at least three things- people’s sex lives, what they do when they’re alone, and what people’s extended conversations are like. And I don’t mean that in like a creepy pervert way, I think creepy perverts ruin curiosity for the rest of us by taking it to a really unhealthy, damaging extreme. What do Aragorn and Gandalf chat about when they’re taking a long horseride together?
[2] Jane Jacobs talked about this in The Death And Life Of Great American Cities. Public figures are very important in the education of a child, or of anybody, really. You know your parents care because they’re your parents, and your teachers care because it’s their job to, but it’s the caring from that people who don’t need to bother that really sticks with you for the rest of your life.
[3] I realize that I need/want/ought to watch stuff regularly, rather than partition it off to some distant future. I can’t do “bulk batches of work” without breaks to drink up all this art. My brain needs watering with stories and perspectives on a nearly daily basis, and I think I get rather messed up and dry when I’ve been deprived of it for some time. I think I should be reading and writing and consuming quality content like this on a very regular basis. I think that will make me a healthier, happier person and that will help me create better, do better, and just get more out of life.