close your eyes and imagine falling in love

I recently read an amusing book by Tom Stempel called American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing. I won't review it here, but only mention that it has a number of funny anecdotes and an enlightening chapter on pre-Million-Dollar-Baby Clint Eastwood. I mention this book because it has gotten me to think about how different one's experience of a movie can be depending on the context in which you view it.

Case in point: Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Before Sunset is in every way a continuation of Before Sunrise: in plot, in theme, in mood, in principal contributors, in acting and directing styles. The films seem similar in overall quality. But I think Before Sunrise is a good, almost great, movie, and Before Sunset is lame. To explain why, I'll have to take you back nine years.

In the Fall of 1996, my roommate watched Before Sunrise on TV, while I did my classwork in the next room. I was hooked before Jesse and Celine got off the train, but I didn't watch it because I had to get that assignment done. I just listened. I felt I wasn't missing anything by only hearing it; the movie was obviously pure dialogue. As such, I thought it was at most half a movie. But I loved it.

Well, I just watched Before Sunrise last night, and it was still good. Tonight, I watched its sequel Before Sunset. And was bored. Why?

1) Sunset is a sequel.

It's one thing to watch an old movie again, where you can tap into the emotions of your previous viewing, and it's altogether another to watch a rehash. For a sequel, more of the same is less.

2) I watched Sunset with a friend, Sunrise (both times) alone.

I tend to enjoy movies less with someone else in the room, even if they are perfectly quiet. Perhaps it is me not wanting to react so much in public, maybe I'm strongly influenced by others' opinions, or maybe it's because I can't stop and take a piss whenever I want. Don't know why, but it happens.

3) I first watched Sunrise when I was 21; I am now almost 30.

Watching the messed-up lives of 32-year-olds when you're about to leave youth behind yourself is just depressing.

4) I listened to Sunrise first, and it was better that way.

The realist cinematography of both movies fails to capture the wonder I found as an American seeing Vienna or Paris for the first time. They're shot like home movies. While this sounds like it would lend a more personal feel, I feel these highly romantic stories would be better shot romantically. Futhermore, the movies are all talk. The only scenes not involving talk are obvious depictions of the awkwardness of first dates. They're romances: they benefit from leaving something to the imagination.

5) The first time I watched Sunrise, I had just experienced much of the story first-hand.

In the fall/winter of 95-96, I was a lonely student in Berlin. All us Americans used our Eurail passes to explore Mitteleuropa, sometimes together, and sometimes alone. Shortly before Christmas, I was wandering alone through Vienna's Christkindlmarkt when I stumbled across a couple high school friends I hadn't heard from in over three years. They just happened to be in that particular square, eight thousand kilometers from home, at that particular moment. We stayed up late into the night talking, asking the big questions of life, and swapping philosophies.

Upon returning from Europe, I discovered that I was in love with one of the students I hung out with there. At the time I listened to Before Sunrise, I had realized I'd made a mistake not acting on that in Europe, and was actively pursuing this girl. I had personal connections to the story.

Those connections are the main reason I like Before Sunrise and not Before Sunset. While my life has vague similarity to the sequel (I'm starting to write, and the girl I had a crush on is now happily married) I don't feel like that's me on the screen. I just didn't hold my crush on the girl all that long. I don't yet know the angst of a bad marriage, or the loss of my dreams. (I know, I know: keep on pretending to be a writer, and that'll take care of itself.) And without the personal connection, I'm left evaluating the movie on its technical merits. The first movie ended ambiguously, but in a natural way given the story. The sequel... well, I won't give it away, but let's just say it ended abruptly. I'm not saying Sunset is technically inferior to Sunrise, only that it didn't connect with me, and that's what movies with nothing but romance have to do.

Maybe you gotta be from Austin.

P.S. If you haven't watched either movie yet, give it a try: "watch" it with the picture turned off or covered. That experiment is what first got me to think critically about movies.