Perfect, in a category of its own

Rating: 10/10 (6 January 2009)

I'm the first to point out the negative things in great films, but to me this is not one, it is perfect, in great part because it doesn't feel like a film: it feels like an invisible camera filmed two random people meeting and separating and you almost feel a guilty pleasure in watching. This is and always will be my favorite film. Great directing, script, cinematography, music and acting.
The romance of Sunrise to me is in the thing about connecting, about being able to talk about anything with this person from the very start, and in the idea of falling in love in such a short amount of time. Call it love at first conversation!
Many beautiful things to comment on, so I'll just pick one: the most meaningful scene of Sunrise to me is at the end, when we are shown the places they had been the night before. Those shots of morning Vienna convey the intensity of the love that we feel between the characters in the sequel, Before Sunset. Jesse and Celine had only met the night before, they were trying to be rational the whole time, not making a fuss over their imminent separation, agreeing not to keep in touch by letter or phone because of the distance. They are being rational up to the final scene when they agree in a rush to meet six months later. It is the only scene where they admit to themselves and to each other the strength of the feelings they would probably only later acknowledge as love, at some point during the nine years before their second encounter. So the shots of the places where they'd been gain importance after the scene where they part having agreed to meet again, because we/them now see the city as a fundamental part/witness to their love.
Nevertheless, as we see Vienna coming back to life under the morning sun, everything is normal to the unfeeling city, except to us they are not there anymore. It's like they had never been there, despite the fact that the city felt like an important ingredient in their story. The place has forgotten them, even though it was only a few hours after their separation. Vienna doesn't hold any memory of them, it's them who hold a memory of Vienna. Obvious of course, I mean you wouldn't expect a street named after every couple who fell in love in a city! but still very symbolically sad, because you tend to think of some places as eternal, and will store things for you that you yourself have lost, and all the more so because Jesse and Celine's encounter almost shouldn't have taken place, it was unplanned and improbable, fleetingly ephemeral.
This is a film where nothing much happens, only great conversation and life-changing connection.