"how about six months?"

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2009)

Before Sunrise is one of the most acclaimed films of Richard Linklater, well just his most acclaimed film. The very first time I saw a Linklater film was back in 2004 when I saw on the big screen the School of Rock, back then I came to see that film as a Jack Black one, certainly not as a Linklater one. It was probably because of Quentin Tarantino that Linklater's Dazed and Confused became for me a must-wanted film (it is one of Tarantino's top 10 films), and in 2007 was when Linklater really blew me away and not only because I finally saw Dazed and Confused (I own the amazing Criterion DVD edition, and I think is about time to visit Dazed and Confused again) but also because I saw the awesome A Scanner Darkly (hell, it's also time to see this amazing film again).
Two years later I finally saw Before Sunrise (I saw almost one week ago, exactly on 15 July 2009) and more than a year later I saw again a Linklater film. The last one was Bad News Bear (I'm not really a big fan of that film as I'm of Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly and The School of Rock but still I like it) back in January 2008. I came first to a Linklater film that is a remake and had very weak reviews, I mean is very easy to find Bad News Bears on R4 DVD just as is very easy to find Before Sunrise on R4 DVD but frankly every time I came across Before Sunrise it looked like anything but like my cup of tea, I don't know it looked like a really sentimental film, like the kind of film that probably my girlfriend would enjoy much more than me. So while very quickly I got the R4 DVD of Bad News Bears (mostly because I enjoyed a lot Bad Santa back in 2007) it was just some weeks ago when I finally decided to get Before Sunrise, why? I found its R1 DVD in offer so I was like "hell, it's Linklater and well who knows maybe I will end loving and regretting for not seeing it before".
I have seen few films that have Hawke but recently I was totally blown away by his performance in Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, it's a fantastic performance and here 12 years before Hawke isn't as great yet he and Delpy (apart of this one I have seen only other film with Delpy in it: Broken Flowers) are quite good. Like I think you already know, the set of this is simple: a man (Hawke, certainly, is the American Jesse) meets a woman (Delpy, certainly, is the French Celine) on a train, he ask her to leave the train with him in Vienna, they will be together until the sunrise. I think this is a success in that way that it gets really engaging with nothing but dialog between the two characters. I love the part when both say to the other their feelings, both "call" to their respective "friends", they tell to their respective "friend" what they felt when they meet the other and stuff, is like "let's sit down and think about this whole thing" and the stuff of "are you going to see him/her again?" begins, her "friend" ask her "you gonna see him again?" and she says "we haven't talked about that yet". But they will and they agree to make of that the one and only night together, they acted like "rational" adults but certainly is not the same to talk about a moment that live that moment, "how about six months?".
This is a good film but NOTHING REALLY IMPRESSIVE, not a great masterpiece, not my favourite from Linklater. I guess by saying that I do have interest in checking out the sequel (the 2004 Before Sunset) I'm giving a compliment to this film because yes, I want to know what happens once Ethan Hawke's character and Julie Delpy's character see each other again.