It's french for negotiation. Err.. Spanish actually.
I watched Before Midnight. I mean, I did finally. For the uninitiated, I claim that Before Sunset has left some pretty strong imprints on my mind. I have been quoting Celine and Jesse (well, mostly Celine) for years here. And after such a tireless wait, Linklater gives me this. I mean this. It's almost like a lover's betrayal.
Wait.. I am kidding. It's not betrayal exactly. But then, somehow the sequel to your favorite movie can never be good enough. Mostly, I had been delaying watching Before Midnight for so many months probably because, I did not want it to touch my perception of Sunset so much.
Call me a fanatic, but there was a time I used to watch it every Friday night. It has made me stand through the most disastrous of heart breaks. And helped seep truth back in. I used to say their lines along with them. Their accents intact. Yes, I was crazy. Still am. Whenever things go dull, I watch it again.
Before Sunset did whatever it did to me because a) it stood by the fact that love mostly is a transient feeling and b) once in a while, one deep conversation with its share of non sequiturs, does help. Our rusted soul, our breathless mind.
I am not averse to everlasting love, but the truth is there might not ever be such a thing. We are on the same point here. Know, things fade. Passions overflow for a while and then. We get really cranky. Irritable, messy beings, who forget what it was like to be young and deep in wet love.
Also, there is this association of romance with angst. I mean, it stays raw in your head if it falls apart. If you keep it from falling apart every single time it has almost gone off the edge, by your enormous patience and fear of dying alone, you leave it to die a slow death.
In Before Midnight, Linklater makes you see Jesse and Celine in such crisis. Like they are barely afloat. There's a tonne of issues. There's kids. Oh my god. Responsibilities, money. And suspicions of infidelity. A lot of screaming. I mean a lot of it. Tempers catching fire. What beasts life has made of them. It's fearful watching them as it is.
The love is now faint. Tied by a multitude of constraints. They euphemize constant fighting by calling it negotiating. Negociación, as Celine said. Accent intact.
5 comments:
I have purposely kept myself from watching all the movies in this series. I am afraid it is going to make me feel things I dont want to.
The speedy patch-up in the end dint do it for me. I was expecting a long drawn recovery process. That being said, it was a treat watching the third part of this continuum. Hoping for another part to come out in a few years from now.
A certain someone had asked me to watch the two movies. Somehow, I don't remember if I did or did not, but would like to believe that I did not; for many have often quoted moving words and quotes from the movies, and yet, I remember nothing of watching it.
Cheers,
Blasphemous Aesthete
@ Abhay, patch-ups are only that sudden for seasoned couples who have some perennial disagreements (?) Just that the love that brought them together, keeps them together.
Never thought someone could rave so much about Before Sunset without touching Before Sunrise. I always thought everyone agreed that Before Sunrise was the best, and Before Sunset could not surpass it. Afterall "somehow the sequel to your favorite movie can never be good enough". Strange to hear you say " a) love mostly is a transient feeling and b) once in a while, one deep conversation with its share of non sequiturs" I wonder if you believe in those two things. Like in real life. But then maybe we all are a bit different in our blog avatars.
As for Jesse and Celine in a crisis, love usually fades a bit after marriage and certainly becomes hard to distinguish after kids. You will get there... eventually, in spite of all your notions of eternal love. Which by the way, I am not against.
By the way, on a technical note you seem to imply that the movie is directed/written by Linklater. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy share screenplay credits for Before Sunset and share both screenplay and direction credits with Linklater for Before Midnight. Just saying
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