| DGT ranks THE 10 BEST FILMS OF THE PAST DECADE!; DONE! #1 on p. 28, full list in 1st post | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 8 2010, 07:02 PM (7,932 Views) | |
| <span style=recyclehumans | Nov 26 2010, 06:03 AM Post #441 |
BOOM! CROASTED.
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#3 coming at you. #3 and #2 were changing spots so many times when locking in the final list, because to me, they are soooooooo fucking close together in my mind. #3. BEFORE SUNSET  2004 directed by Richard Linklater written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Kim Krizan starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy This one's tough to write. Like, really tough. Bear with me, please. BEFORE SUNSET is the sequel to the absolutely sublime 1995 film BEFORE SUNRISE, also directed by Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. That film involved a young American named Jesse meeting a young French woman named Celine on a train in Europe. He thinks she's beautiful. Captivating. They strike up a conversation. As the train makes Jesse's stop in Vienna, impulse strikes. As they talk, Celine's convinced to hop off in Vienna as well, even though she's on her way to Paris. They decide to spend a day together in Vienna, just to keep talking and getting to know each other. When lightning strikes, it strikes. They explore the city the entire day, straight through the night, into the next morning. The compression of a relationship into a single day forces them to be more open. More revealing. There's something about knowing this bond is going to end soon, within hours, that coaxes out the most sensitive core of each of them. When they separate, there's every chance in the world that they'll never see each other again. Phones? Letters? Emails? They live in different countries. They've only known each other for a day. Expectations are not considered… this is an experience of the extended moment, and to savor it to its fullest, Jesse and Celine give everything to each other. It's like an entire life lived over the course of a day for the two of them. And they're enthralled. It's a connection unlike any other they've experienced. And they don't want it to end. But it has to. Celine needs to keep heading back to Paris and Jesse has a flight to make back to the US. Before Celine hops onto the train bound for Paris, they make a decision -- six months from that moment, they will meet back in Vienna, right there at that train station. She boards the train, departs, and Jesse leaves to return to the US. BEFORE SUNSET takes place nine years after their last kiss on that train platform, before making that vow to each other. Jesse and Celine are older. Perhaps wiser. But mostly just more lived in. I don't think either would say they're older and wiser. Just older and more experienced with life. And boy, are they in different places now.  Jesse is in Paris, on the last stop of the publicity tour for his first published novel (which happens to be about that day and night spent with Celine in Vienna). As he's wrapping up his Q&A session with journalists, he glances to the shelves next to him and sees Celine watching him from a respectful distance, a smile on her face. It clearly throws him, and he finishes the Q&A. We learn that Jesse needs to be at the airport in roughly 2 hours to catch a flight back to New York. Just like that, we know that, just like the first time we encountered them, Jesse and Celine have a time limit. And unlike SUNRISE, this film plays out in real time, over the course of about 80 minutes. And, as it turns out, this is the first time they've seen each other since that summer day in Vienna. They did not reunite six months later. This was not their intention -- they did try to reunite. Jesse, in fact, was there in Vienna six months later. However, Celine's grandmother (whom Celine had just visited when SUNRISE began) died mere days before the reunion date and could not make it. They didn't exchange numbers or addresses during their one day, preferring to see fate lead their way. Fate, it seems, is a hideous bitch goddess. It's also misleading. After that failed reunion, they each never expected to see the other again. They admit outright to each other that they practically considered it impossible to meet up a second time. And yet in those nine years, neither could forget what happened. Jesse and Celine remained in each other's minds. The word "haunted" isn't quite appropriate, but it's an approximation. Celine has tried to excise Jesse from her mind in one capacity or another, but she can't do it… that day with him irreparably changed her. She has other relationships, and none of them work out in the end, for one reason or another. She's currently seeing a photographer who's usually away on assignment, leaving her to her own devices. And Jesse has an on- and off-again relationship with a woman for several years. They marry after she becomes pregnant. Jesse's a husband and a father. But his heart isn't in his marriage anymore. To quote him, "I feel like I'm running a small nursery with someone I used to date." He thinks of Celine. He dreams of Celine. He sometimes wakes from these dreams in sobs feeling "a million miles away" from his wife. And then… poof. There they are. Together again. For less than an hour and a half. There's so much to say. So much they want to say. So much they have to say. And so much they can't.  BEFORE SUNSET is the about the eternal question: "What if?" It's about what we do when we're faced with a second chance at something we considered lost. It's about how painful it is to want something so badly, feeling so completely that it's the right thing and the true thing, yet it's just not practical. It's not feasible. Life is not as easy as the movies would like us to believe. Romance is not just complex, but fragile. A connection with another person we may feel can be the most fulfilling and enriching and right thing we've ever known in the world. Something we may feel is the one for us. The love of your life. It's a connection that means so much, we'd give anything to keep it. But that doesn't mean it's something we can keep. Sometimes, what's meant to be… isn't. So much can be said about BEFORE SUNSET as just a film. It's dialogue-heavy. As in, almost the entire film is just Jesse and Celine talking as they journey through Paris. Each place they find themselves in is simple one closer step until he has to leave. And they both know it. The reunion is accelerated -- the initial awkwardness, the ebullient chit-chat catching up, both segueing into both revealing more and more about what's changed for them, their lives, where they are in them… and what they see when they look at each other. There is no idealized concept of a third reunion, so everything is put on the table between them. The ideas they exchange and the secrets they reveal to each other are honest, adult, complex, contradictory… in a single word, real. Films don't show real. Real tends to be too boring for most people -- they want fantasy in their films. Especially from their romances. Not this film. This film goes for the jugular of reality. And it's that reality that I have in mind as I write this. It's what made me love BEFORE SUNRISE so much, and it's what made me love BEFORE SUNSET even more. It's a reality that should be required of every person to live and experience. It's a reality that speaks to the heart of any relationship we ever have, hitting like a bullseye the maelstrom in all of us constantly wondering what could've been, might've been, should've been, what will be, what we want, where we are, where we want to be and where we might go. And how the answers to almost all of those questions more often than not tend to be very different. Both sides of Jesse and Celine speak to me, although one speaks to me more powerfully than the other (SUNSET, naturally). After my freshman year of college, there was this one day in my summer break when I ended up randomly hanging out with a girl a few grades higher than me. We were both involved with theatre in high school and I annoyed her greatly (are you surprised?). When we met up that day (she happened to be at a friend's house that I was visiting), we had both changed. And we were surprised with what we saw from the other. Pleasantly so. A few hours later, she was dropping me back off at my house. Sun was going down, and we didn't want the night to quite end yet. So we didn't let it. We drove to our favorite diner (our high school's theatre clique religiously adored this place) and stayed there for hours. The conversation just… flowed. It was effortless. It was surprising. Shocking, even. But it was wonderful. And by the time midnight or so came around, we knew we should've stopped and gone our respective ways (please consider that at this time, she had a boyfriend). But we didn't go home. We drove to a nearby lake near her place, grabbed a spot by the water, and kept talking. Hours kept passing. We kept seeing more and more in each other that was taking us by surprise in an amazing way. It was connecting in a way I didn't know could really happen. We were just… there. Like it was its own reality. And we didn't want it to end. But morning was coming. The sun was about to come up. She didn't want to leave. Neither did I. There was a choice in front of us we both acknowledged. It felt right to keep going, talking, getting closer, knowing it could lead to something. And on the flip side… there was reality. The reality of her having a boyfriend and me not wanting to cross that line. Her not wanting to cross that line. There were reasons from both of us, both different. But we both felt like we should keep going, wherever it took us. But we didn't. By the time the sun was all the way up, we were both back in our beds. And while ever since that day our friendship has been huge and deep and understanding, it never really went back to the level of that night -- thought it was a night (and the feelings of it) that remained in both our minds for a very long time. BEFORE SUNRISE speaks to me so strongly because of that night. There are others, of course, but that was my first time truly feeling a moment like that, being faced with something so new, so unexpectedly tempting and wonderful, yet so impractical. It was my first, and like any first of an experience, it tends to stick the most. It's rare that a random encounter with someone we meet speaks to us so strongly that we are enraptured with that moment and do everything we can to live in it for as long as possible. When it happens, it's something to treasure. It's also something that we have to acknowledge may be fleeting. It's very real, but real doesn't mean permanent. It doesn't mean forever. It shouldn't ever stop that moment from being savored, but life isn't easy enough to let us have our moments of perfection become our entire lives.  Enter BEFORE SUNSET. Enter Kate. (the following is highly truncated, of course) Kate and I have known each other for a decade. For many of those years, our lives were essentially a "What if?" question that never got answered, yet always got asked. She was interested in me, but I blew her off. I was interested in her, but she blew me off. She almost went to University of the Arts in Philly while I was still there at Temple (enrolled, deposit, room assignment -- everything), but backed out at the last minute because of another guy she wanted to stay close with in North Carolina (who ended up leaving her less than 2 months later). We would be furious with each other over the choices we were making and how they were affecting the other, but always coming back into contact and rebuilding in some way. By the time she started college, she met and started dating someone she ended up seeing for her entire 4 years at UNC. And the entire time, I was jealous of him. Latently, but still jealous. The question wasn't in my mind every day, but it would surface at times: "What if? What would've happened?" In the beginning of 2008, they broke up. And in less than a week, she flew to Philly to visit me. We had spoken passively over the years about the "What if?", but it remained that -- an unanswered question. Now? It was on the table. What if we tried to see if there's an answer to the question? So we did. Like most things in life, the answer was not easy. The answer was yes and no. Simultaneously. And by the end of that month, she realized she couldn't. She was back with her boyfriend. And I felt horrible. It was over a month before we talked again. Fast forward a couple more months. I told her about the next game I was hosting, Nepal. She said she could win it, despite never having seen an episode of Survivor. I said "yeah right, prove it". She was in the game. She got second place. I was pwned. But what was important about Nepal was that we were getting closer again. We'd be on the phone most nights, for hours at a time. The boyfriend would be a cursory call, and then I would be the last person she talked to. After the game, without expecting it, the "What if?" question came up again. By the end of August, I flew to NC. We tried round 2, knowing that this would very likely be it. It's either going to feel right or it's not. It did. I think that part has been fairly obvious. My love for BEFORE SUNSET was naturally amplified by what was essentially my personal version of it with Kate becoming not only real, but fulfilled. Now, somehow, recent events have made me love BEFORE SUNSET even more, letting me see so much more fully the complexity and fragility of the answer of that "What if?". Because now, I get to see the film without the first reaction of seeing what must obviously be a fairy tale ending. Life is not a fairy tale. Life hurts. Life often sucks just as much as it's beautiful and amazing. BEFORE SUNSET is about love and finding a connection once thought lost and facing what could be at just the time when you yourself feel like there could be an answer to that damn question. But it's also, at its core, about truth, however uncomfortable or painful it might be, as much as we don't want it. Kate and I have been broken up for several months now. It was sudden. Suffice it to say, it's been heartbreaking and the most unbearable time I've ever felt. Deaths have happened around me that haven't wrecked me as much as this has. Granted, like any loss, recovery is slow but ever happening. But this is now the holiday season. Thanksgiving was tonight and I wasn't with my new family. Christmas will come and I won't be with my new family. It sucks. It wasn't supposed to be like this, right? It was the magic "What if?" finally answered, and it was answered with passion, and it was perfect and life-changing. Those are supposed to last forever. How can they not? The answer is, of course, very easily. Because life is fragile. So easily fractured, so much harder to rebuild. Just like our relationships. And those chains of events that bring us to someone that changes our lives forever for the better can just as easily separate us from them, either at or against our will. Perhaps fate truly is a hideous bitch goddess. I'd like to think that, but I know it's not. Nothing is so easily encapsulated. BEFORE SUNSET, to offer a singular spoiler, ends ambiguously. Much like BEFORE SUNRISE refusing to give us an epilogue or postscript about Jesse and Celine's reunion six months later, we aren't given an answer to where they will stand at the final fadeout. The film as much tells us this is what will happen when the French journalists are asking about the ambiguous ending to Jesse's book. Jesse remarks with appreciation that whatever ending a person imagines there is speaks to what kind of person they are. Are you a cynic? Then you believe they won't reunite in Vienna six months later. If you're a romantic, you believe they do. If you're conflicted, then you just don't know… you want them to, but you know life isn't so easy as to guarantee an absolute.  Such is the ending of BEFORE SUNSET. The film builds the awareness of the impending separation for these two characters with every minute they're together, every new place they step to. They hop on a ferry boat just to talk a few minutes more, with Jesse's taxi to the airport waiting for him at the next port. When they get there, she's about to take the metro, but he gets the taxi to drive her to her apartment. They could say goodbye at the complex's courtyard entrance, but he offers to walk her to her building. He could leave her there to go inside, but asks to hear one of her songs. There's always one last moment that turns into another, but with each transition, that deadline looms closer. His window of time growing so much shorter. And yet, they can't break away. As they ascend the staircase to reach her 3rd floor apartment, they walk the stairs in silence, only able to glance at each other for a moment at a time, a nervous smile to follow. It's such a small moment in any other circumstance, but the weight of their entire lives rests on their shoulders, and it shows. What also shows is that they're letting that weight sit there, because they know their lives are better for having that weight than to be robbed of it, even if, in the end, its resolution isn't the stuff made of fantasy. This is such sparse, simple, elegant storytelling. It's a film where the most intricate of emotions are explored and expressed in the perfect words, but in those moments of silence, the true depth of their world is communicated. And in those moments, we understand the both the agony and the ecstasy that can be a person we let into our lives. We realize there is never a "right" time for something -- or someone -- to happen. Circumstances may feel perfect or they may feel impossible. It's a matter of what we choose to make with what's given to us. It's a matter of living. It's a matter of choosing to live. Sometimes, we don't make a choice to persue something. The reasons we have aren't necessarily wrong. But sometimes we do. This movie is about facing that kind of choice. They're not easy to face, and the consequences of a choice are unpredictable and easily paralyzing. There are always reasons to do something, just as there are always reasons not to.  As Jesse watches Celine get lost in a playful imitation of Nina Simone, she remarks to him in Simone's voice, "Baby, you're gonna miss that plane." Jesse fiddles slightly with his wedding ring. "I know", he says. He admires Celine for a moment, then can't help but laugh with affection at what she's doing. Savoring the moment. But is he savoring it because he knows it's the last one he's going to have? Or is he savoring it because he knows it might be the first of many? I used to think that Jesse was savoring it because he knew it would be the first of many. I can't think that anymore. I just don't think I'm capable of it. But I'm not broken. I want Jesse to stay. I want him to savor that moment and not have it be the last. And I believe Jesse wants that, too. I also believe Jesse has no answer for himself. I believe he's savoring the sight of Celine, looking so adorable, being this person he has always found enrapturing, because he simply doesn't know what to do. He'd give anything for it to not be the last moment. Anything. It feels right. It feels like his life. It feels like where he wants to be. Where he should be. He doesn't know if it's where he can be. I believe he makes his choice one second after the film fades to black. And I so want it to be a choice to stay. I so want it. But I also know that making that choice means they could, as they joke about earlier in the film, find out they actually hate each other, and that they're only really good together for wandering around European cities in the summer. If he chooses to stay, they might live happily ever after. They might be a passionate affair for a couple of years and then just as passionately be apart, and it might wreck them. But I don't think they'd regret the choice. And I think Jesse knows he wouldn't regret the choice. It's a choice of life. The potential of it, the promise of it, the feeling of it. I wouldn't regret the choice. I've made it already. I know the joy it brings. And the heartbreak. And I still don't regret it. I hope he makes the choice. I'm just not sure he can. I feel like I'm old enough to see that now. And understand it. I'm older. Not wiser. Just more experienced. It makes this film all the more real. And perfect. Undeniably so. So why THIS movie? I think I've made my point clear. There is no score, only a few songs (one over the opening titles, one over the end titles, one sung by Celine and a Nina Simone track). So in lieu of that, I offer this. It's the movie itself. Watch it. I'd prefer you saw it on a large TV as you play a DVD or Blu-ray, but this is watchable this instant. However you watch it, just watch it. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIxqfTozwk8 |
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| <span style=foulmouthedleon | Nov 26 2010, 09:16 AM Post #442 |
freeze_"
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I loved both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Good write up! |
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| Jeff P3 | Nov 26 2010, 02:03 PM Post #443 |
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Unregistered
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Never saw it. |
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| <span style=growsonballs | Nov 26 2010, 02:15 PM Post #444 |
Amazing Ace
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Omg Before Sunset  This is also a movie that's very personal to me for all the wrong reasons, but I absolutely love the movie. And I'm so sorry to hear about Kate. That made me have a tear in my eye. 
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| Why aren't you pointing your finger at grows, who I have provided sufficient evidence against? She is the starter of all things evil in games. | |
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| <span style=CatLurvesDorothy | Nov 26 2010, 05:04 PM Post #445 |
Hungry. ;_;
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I've never seen it, but your writeup makes me want to. I didn't know you and Kate broke up. I'm sorry for the jabs in VASS2. |
Meow. Overall Statistics (that badly need an update) | |
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| <span style=CatLurvesDorothy | Nov 26 2010, 05:06 PM Post #446 |
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Hungry. ;_;
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I also loved Frost|Nixon and Shaun of the Dead. |
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Meow. Overall Statistics (that badly need an update) | |
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| <span style=Mister Plum | Nov 26 2010, 08:01 PM Post #447 |
SurviBoy
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Great taste recycle. Just like what I mentioned in this thread, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are the only conversational-filled movie that I love. It sucks though because you should have put this to no. 1, just because I guessed that this will be no. 1. jks But still... *reads your blog* |
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| <span style=midnight problay | Nov 26 2010, 11:50 PM Post #448 |
Disgruntled Vet
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I always wanted to see this movie but I never saw Before Sunrise. Is the first absolutely necessary? |
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| <span style=Mister Plum | Nov 27 2010, 12:46 AM Post #449 |
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SurviBoy
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For me it is. |
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| <span style=Jeremy | Nov 27 2010, 12:55 AM Post #450 |
Pink Ranger
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I don't know. When DGT introduced me to the sequel I had not yet watched (and still haven't) the first one. But it was still one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. If you didn't see the first one, you're almost more engrossed because you're concentrating on back-story until it becomes your memory too. I just love it SO MUCH. Thank you for this beautiful and personal write-up. Someday I hope to see these lists in magazines or something.
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| Emcee Hutch | Nov 27 2010, 01:04 AM Post #451 |
Irritating Fuck
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I hope Grown-Ups get #2 |
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| <span style=recyclehumans | Nov 27 2010, 02:57 AM Post #452 |
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BOOM! CROASTED.
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I saw SUNSET before I saw SUNRISE. My appreciation of the film obviously wasn't wounded by the out-of-order viewing. 
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| <span style=recyclehumans | Nov 27 2010, 02:58 AM Post #453 |
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BOOM! CROASTED.
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Honorable Mentions… only one more of these babies left to go... ABOUT SCHMIDT  THE WRESTLER  WAKING LIFE  THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND  THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA  CLOSER  IDENTITY  UP  TALK TO HER  and a film that was in the top 10 until the last second… FAHRENHEIT 9/11 
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| <span style=ncassaro | Nov 27 2010, 03:01 AM Post #454 |
That was way harsh
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Identity was a cool movie. I love mindfucks like that that go deep into a person's mind. And all the Michael Moore films making honorable mention.
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY0bHULptWQ | |
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| messiebessie | Nov 27 2010, 03:03 AM Post #455 |
ORG GOD
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I hate Michael Moore. 
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| arasfromexile (11:55:08 PM): showing you gts will forever be my biggest mistake of our past friendship | |
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| Emcee Hutch | Nov 27 2010, 03:11 AM Post #456 |
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Irritating Fuck
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About Schmidt was an amazing film. |
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| <span style=Mister Plum | Nov 27 2010, 03:12 AM Post #457 |
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SurviBoy
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Dayummmm at you likeing Waking Life It's the sequel to Before Sunset. jks. I like that film in the sense that it made an impact to me. When I woke up the next morning I watched Waking Life, I checked myself if I'm still really alive. No kidding. I'm such a loser. 
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| <span style=ncassaro | Nov 27 2010, 03:26 AM Post #458 |
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That was way harsh
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I can see how hearing the truth would suck  Aren't you from Michigan though? Roger & Me was really in tune with Michigan's problems.
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY0bHULptWQ | |
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| <span style=GnarlsOakley | Nov 27 2010, 04:00 AM Post #459 |
WWLVD?
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Michael Moore is no more truthful then his far right equivalent Glen Beck in that they cleverly frame half truths and coincidence to either spin crazy conspiracy theories or push personal agendas. |
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| <span style=recyclehumans | Nov 27 2010, 04:05 AM Post #460 |
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BOOM! CROASTED.
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Michael Moore's record of truth-telling in his films isn't really something that can be argued by either side without being reduced to hair-pulling and profanities. As a filmmaker? Moore is superlative. He is by far the most impressive documentary filmmaker working today. And to anyone would would say his movies aren't real documentaries because they're so subjective and lack any objectivity whatsoever -- duh. Welcome to ALL filmmaking. There's no such thing as objectivity in non-fiction film. There's no such thing as objectivity in any media. The mere act of selective presentation of what is and isn't conveyed to a viewer, listener or reader is by its very nature the birth of prejudice and subjectivity. Throwing that aside, Michael Moore is a brilliant director. |
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