One of the most beautiful films ever made

Rating: Null/10 (16 November 2014)

Absolutely sublime. All I could think while watching the film was, "This is wonderful." I had extremely high expectations for the film. It not only met them but it far surpassed them at every turn. The writing is beautiful. The dialogue is so natural and realistic that it seems like we are following a day in the lives of two real people. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are fantastic as Jesse and Céline. Their performances and their phenomenal chemistry are both note perfect. I have always been a big fan of Hawke and I think that he is one of the most underrated actors of his generation but I had never seen Delpy in a film and, like everything else in the film, she blew me away.
At several points during the film, Jesse and Céline discuss the fact that they are in their own world and it is as if time has stopped while they are ambling through Vienna. This is emphasised by the fact that none of the other characters in the film receive names and none of them appear for more than two or three minutes. It is as if they are shadows. Interestingly, neither Jesse nor Céline receive surnames. I adored the fact that they left it ambiguous as to whether they had sex.
The film was largely based on the director and co-writer Richard Linklater's similar experience with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt in Philadelphia in 1989. He never saw her again and only found out in 2010 that she had been killed in a motorbike accident in 1994. It also draws inspiration from "Ulysses" (most notably the fact that the film involves travelling through a city on 16 June), "My Dinner with Andre" and perhaps from the 1945 film "The Clock" starring Judy Garland and Robert Walker.
I saw this film for the first time yesterday but it has already become my eleventh favourite film of all time. Just fabulous.