After Before Midnight

Coming out of the theater on Monday, my friends Claire and Vanessa asked me what I thought about Before Midnight. I couldn't answer them. Finally, I decided, "I have to see it again."  But then I blurted out, "it makes me scared."

Why was fear my lasting emotion? Trust me, I had many during the screening: excitement, confusion, love, frustration, sadness, hopefulness, impatience, passion. This range of emotions is actually perfect because it is exactly those, and more, that Jesse and Céline feel over the course of the film.

But I was scared because this third film in the trilogy depicts the difficulties of life and relationships that may be coming in the future. I've not yet felt the compromises of parenthood. I haven't ever gone so deep with someone that they know how to fight with me, and win. I always fear that a connection like theirs, rich with thinking, will deteriorate if we can't communicate. Like them, I need to do more to embrace the power of vulnerability. As I felt when I saw Before Sunset before I was ready, Before Midnight evoked the same panic. It jolted me into a stage of life that I haven't yet experienced, so my presently healthy optimism took a momentary nosedive.

None of this is a reflection on the quality of the film, because the film itself perfectly embraces imperfections. It's exquisite in the way it explores the really intricate bullshit of two people. The late-afternoon walk to the hotel is Linklater-Delpy-Hawke dialogue extraordinaire, and the fight at the hotel surprises with so many twists and turns (and jabs and successions) that I marvel at how the three of them could craft something so real. The whole film is so specific and yet so universal. But I'll need to see it again, because I need to make sense of it beyond a surge of powerful moments.

So perhaps Before Midnight will grow with me when I encounter the tough details of a really long-term relationship. Like the time machine metaphor Jesse uses at the end, I'm experimenting with the time/space continuum. Past, present, future are all contained in these three films; Jesse and Céline have compiled memories of a life together, and yet there’s so much more left to discover, if they're willing. Explore ad infinitum...I'll have to see it again.

Before Before Midnight

Next Monday I will sit in a movie theater in Copenhagen and see Before Midnight (2013, Richard Linklater) on the big screen, but before I do that (and write a post about it), I need to document why this movie saga has sunk deep into my spirit.

It all started one particular night over Thanksgiving break in 2006. My friend David invited me over to watch Before Sunrise. I knew nothing about the film, but trusted David's taste in movies (he had previously introduced me to Wes Anderson and Manhattan). I watched Richard Linklater's 1995 film dumbstruck and swooning; this film was giving life to everything I believed about love and relationships.

Céline and Jesse's chance meeting on a train towards Vienna, and their subsequent connection through rich conversation, is never overdone in the Hollywood way. I'd always valued words as the building blocks to connection, and now I was seeing a true, authentic exploration of two people using their words to weave themselves together.  I appreciate subtlety in film, and Before Sunrise does this expertly when depicting new love. A story doesn't have to be filled with plot twists to be compelling, because what's more compelling than two people discovering each other? Céline says it herself in the film: "if there's any magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt."

But their story in Before Sunrise ends with a cliffhanger of uncertainty. Luckily there was a sequel -- Before Sunset -- which I didn't have to wait nine years to see like those who had waited between 1995 and 2004. The second film is an emotionally deeper, wiser film, where Jesse and Céline have lost their youthful romanticism partly because of what happened to them and between them during those nine years. Because I watched it immediately after the first, Before Sunset sent me wheeling from intense idealism to pragmatic distress. I worried that it was very possible for me to lose my romantic optimism if things didn't work out the way I expected them to.

Nevertheless, I took Before Sunrise and Before Sunset with me in my heart to Paris. On trains I'd hope that some cute guy would sit next to me. I often went (and still do, every time I'm in Paris) to Shakespeare & Co just to remember that Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were once there. I'd picture meeting someone (hopefully French or otherwise foreign) and that our conversations, and with them attraction, would flow and deepen. In fact I did meet someone and spent a perfect spring day walking around the city with him, but neither of us was from Paris and we had to fly home shortly afterwards. A year and a half later I flew to the foreign city where he lives to meet him, thinking there might still be something, but scheduling didn't work out and I haven't seen him since.

Like Jesse and Céline's missed connection, after that trip it's quite possible that "I might have given up on the whole idea of romantic love, I might have put it to bed, that day, when you weren't there." But now I'm renewed, 3 years later, with a healthy optimism. I still harbor the idea that conversation is the key to connection, since I've had great relationships and even better conversations in both the platonic and romantic categories. But I've realized too it's about timing, because things don't always work out. In any case, it warms me to know that in Before Midnight, Jesse and Céline have ended up together and are now dealing with the everyday stuff of marriage (more on that next week after I've seen it). It may not have worked out the way they expected, but their story does have a direction, as does my life.

What fascinates me about these three films is their treatment of time. The titles imply it: the continuing narrative places a big emphasis on real time. How does time work in instants, and how does it change us? How do connections with people withstand the test of time, or how do they not? It's 7 years since I first discovered this story, but my love for it has not depleted. If anything, it's grown. I've grown with these characters and will continue to do so. Every time I watch each film something new resonates emotionally, as I bring my own experiences into play.

But most of all, this trilogy has shown me that the people you meet in the places you experience give your life its direction. I will be leaving Copenhagen in a few months to start anew in Boston, and Before helps me remember that my connections to people, wherever I've been, have colored my identity. And that it's never too late to be with someone, should it be right.

The Intouchables and Cinephiliac Moments

Yesterday I read this article by Christian Keathley called "The Cinephiliac Moment," in which he writes about the distinct ability of cinematic moments to take hold on our emotions and never let go. We all have moments from movies that have particularly ensnared our hearts. One example from my own cinephilia is the instant Jesse catches Céline's eye in a Paris bookshop in Before Sunset, where flashbacks of their fortuitous one-night romance nine years earlier in Before Sunrise wrap the moment in a decade of history, instantaneously.

If I had to think of one film that has recently afforded me a cinephiliac moment, it's 2011's The Intouchables, the French comedy that's reminded the world why France is so good at uplifting, truthful cinema.

Philippe, a millionaire who has become quadriplegic after a paragliding accident, employs Driss, a charismatic black man from the banlieue, as his caretaker. Philippe wants no pity from him, and Driss instead offers a pragmatic and lighthearted approach to life. Throughout their exchange, Philippe helps Driss see the finer things in life, while Driss gives Philippe some vestiges of adventure. The film watches them become unlikely but hilarious friends, and the appropriate life lessons are spooned out for us as they learn from each other.

Already the entire premise is cinephiliac - that people can come from difference to help each other - so our emotional heartstrings are already taut at the beginning of the film. And with a tasteful script, an expressive soundtrack and elegant cinematography, the film is visually and aurally easy to love.

But there is one sequence in particular in which I felt that my vast love of the cinema funneled into a sharp and emotional cinephiliac moment. Philippe needs relief from his claustrophobic body, so he and Driss drive to the Swiss Alps for some fresh air, which they get in the form of tandem-paragliding.

The beauty of cinema is almost overwhelming in this paragliding scene.  Colorful parachutes outlined against snow-topped mountains, sweeping birds-eye views, perspective shots in the open air, monumental music - we feel weightless ourselves, overcome by the joy that Philippe and Driss also feel.

Moments like these in cinema close the gap between viewer and film, so that our bodies feel transported into the diegesis and we intensely identify with the characters' experiences. Vivian Sobchack describes this relationship as a "carnal" one, where what's on screen is reproduced in our own skin. I think this is possible because of the sensory complexity of film; the magnitudes of sight and sound make us feel them physically, through touch and memory. The result is a momentary bliss, where we escape our own bodily presence and replace it with the feelings that come directly from the screen.

The escapism only ever lasts a moment, but that's another thing I love about it. If you try to hold on to it, it loses its power. So, I head back to the cinema as often as I can, seeking my next emotional and sensory thrill. If you do too, try The Intouchables, and embrace the moment when it surely comes.