Sunrise, Sunset

By chicago_chris in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 30, 2004 6:53PM

With all the attention surrounding Fahrenheit 9/11 and Spiderman 2 (released today and yes, we really want to see it, too) a sure-to-be-great small movie may get lost in the fold. That movie is Before Sunset, the aptly titled sequel to Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, one of the best romantic films (or films period, really) of the last ten years. So simple and so beautiful, the original follows two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, neither of them better before or since) as they stroll around nighttime Vienna until having to depart the next morning. Like an American Eric Rohmer movie, it's full of smart, witty dialogue and, like a Richard Linklater movie (see: Waking Life), it's full of rambling, confused and confusing post-graduate monologues. But unlike the director's Slacker – which will be released on an incredible Criterion DVD this August – the movie isn't one big conversation spread amongst a hundred people, but one focused discussion centered around two complete characters. We watch them first get to know each other, then slowly fall in love – all just through the magic of talking.

The movie has plenty of other virtues to recommend, from the nod to The Third Man on the Ferris wheel to the lovely, wordless scene in the music booth to the Daniel Johnston song playing over the closing credits. At first, Chicagoist was wary of the idea of a sequel to such a perfect, self-contained little movie, but art is clearly the motivation behind this movie, not finance. (We'll bet the Hollywood studios were just begging for a sequel, nine years later, to a movie that earned so little money and garnered so little attention upon its release.) The new film sounds equally lovely, featuring the couple's reunion unfolding in real-time on the daytime streets of Paris. Get your thrills from Spiderman 2 today or tomorrow, so you can be free to have your heart melted this Friday. Oh, and make sure to take someone you love.