Before Sunset and Before Sunrise
Before SunriseandBefore Sunsetare director Richard Linklater's intimate romantic bookends. Separated by nine years, the latter film picks up the  threads of an unfinished conversation spurred during the former's chance encounter between an American writer (Ethan Hawke) and French grad student (Julie  Delpy). Commitments have long since changed their lives, but the question remains:What if?Hawke and Delpy blurred the lines between filmmaking and  reality by penning their own dialog for the second installment, while the actress further underscored that sensibility by writing and performing the core songs for its  soundtrack. Their warm, vulnerable charm offers character insight rare in a song-score, while the folk contributions of singers Kathy McCarty and  Kath Bloom and chamber pieces by Bach and Purcell complete the ambience; several songs from the 1995 film round out the collection.--Jerry McCulley