Looks like the blog's taking on a theme this week- love, heartache, and all the things to do with people coming together, or not. Just watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset back to back, and it was lovely. Just lovely. They were perfect love stories (or a perfect love story) full of moments of repressed longing, regret and intimacy. I love the fact that the movie only had them and them alone- no one else. At the end of the day, that's it isn't it? Love is about two people and the things they confess and pour out only to each other; those moments you share that nobody else knows about, the presence you inhabit only in the company of the other, and the kind of person you are, only when you're with the one you love.
And these emotions transcend words, it's about how you feel and how these feelings emnate without you even saying anything. My two favorite scenes from the films have Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy just looking at each other, music playing and them just looking. In Before Sunrise, it's the one in the record shop listening booth where they're listening to Kath Bloom's Come Here. They're leaning side by side and trying hard to sneak glances at each other without the other one catching them. It's an 80-second extended shot and it was sublime. Just wacthing them watching each other, the awkwardness, the tension- you could almost feel the electricity of those first blossomings of desire crackling.
Nine years later, in Before Sunset, Julie Delpy plays the waltz for Ethan Hawke. He's sitting on her couch and she's on her bed and they're not even close to touching. But as the lyrics come out of her mouth, and she looks at him, and he looks back at her, it becomes one of the most poignant scenes ever committed to celluloid, especially if you've watched the first film. The song is her love letter to him- the torrent of feelings about this one man on that one night nine years ago finally channeled- simply and sweetly- to the right recepient. It feels wrong for you to be watching the scene because it's like you're intruding on someone's confession. It's an almost sacred moment for them. Excruciatingly brilliant.
"There's wind that blows in from the north.
And it says that loving takes this course.
Come here. Come here.
No I'm not impossible to touch I have never wanted you so much.
Come here. Come here.
Have I never laid down by your side.
Baby, let's forget about this pride.
Come here. Come here.
Well I'm in no hurry. Don't have to run away this time.
I know you're timid.
But it's gonna be all right this time."
- Kath Bloom, "Come Here"
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