I've only once before discussed a movie in this blog, having almost
never been affected enough by one to write about it. I need to perceive a theme on which to ruminate—as in [1],
which pondered the randomness, transience and futility of fame.
Such a theme arose for me in the newly released Before
Midnight, the third part of a trilogy—the
first two parts having been Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset
(2004). Unusually, the third
installment is even better than the first two, which were excellent in
themselves. (The second was
nominated for an Oscar.) Indeed, Before
Midnight has been acclaimed in an
extraordinary 98% of critics' reviews [2].
Possibly unique about all three films is that each consists
of virtually continuous dialog between the two main characters (Jesse and
Céleste), which is unbroken by any substantial action other than walking about,
or even by much background music.
It's a script that would be daunting enough for actors to carry off on a
stage, and it's formidable in a movie.
Despite this difficulty, I found the performances pitch-perfect. Luckily for realism, the actors
themselves age throughout the almost two
decades spanned by production of the trilogy, along with the characters they play.
The three parts together show how time and events can first
bring enchantment into our lives and then chip away at it. For me, that's a penetrating
theme. Céline sets the motif in
part two by saying, "There's an Einstein quote
I really, really like. He said,
'If you don't believe in any kind of magic or mystery, basically you're as good
as dead.'" When we become disenchanted, we die a
little.
I'll try not to be a spoiler, for I highly recommend your
seeing at least Before Midnight, and if
possible its predecessors, in sequence.
Still, I don't think I'll be doing you a disservice by revealing the
basic plot line.
In Before Sunrise,
Jesse and Céline, single and in their twenties, meet on a train to Vienna. They spend a night together there,
doing little more than wandering its streets, walking and talking, while
becoming deeply enchanted with one another. The magic infects us as well. At the end of the film, Jesse and Céline part—Jesse to fly
home to the U.S., Céline to return to France. In the last seconds, they impetuously promise to meet
again in Vienna in six months.
The story resumes nine years later in Before Sunset. We
find out that the promised meeting never occurred. Jesse showed up, but Céline was unable to because of a death in
her family; and they had no other way of getting in touch with each other. Jesse has by this point written a book
inspired by his encounter with Céline and is at an event in Paris promoting it,
when he sees her in the audience.
Once more Jesse has a plane to catch, so they again spend their limited
time together walking and talking.
Jesse is now in an unhappy marriage, tied to it by
his love for his four-year-old son.
Céline is unhappy with her boyfriend. Their enchantment is rekindled, and they wistfully explore
how their lives would have been different if the meeting had occurred. We sense
that this time Jesse is going to miss his plane, perhaps stay in Europe.
Does it so far sound like a daytime-TV soap opera? My abbreviated description might make
it seem so. Yet the poetry of
Jesse and Céline's romance and the brilliance with which it is acted make us fall
into their enchantment twice over.
Reviewers—so often cynical and hypercritical—have surrendered to its
spell too.
Fast forward seven-plus years in the story to Before
Midnight, which opens at an airport in
Greece. Jesse is seeing off his
now 12-year-old son, who is returning to his divorced mother in Chicago after
spending a summer with Jesse and Céline—the two are now married and have twin
girls. For a third time we spend
over an hour engrossed in their dialog.
Time and reality have taken a toll on their enchantment, and we
gradually become aware of the sources of that wear and tear. I'll leave the story here so that you
can find out for yourself how it unfolds.
The
yin-yang principle of ancient Chinese philosophy has it that the world and
we ourselves are acted upon by myriad complementary forces, seemingly opposite
but actually interdependent and inseparable wholes: light/dark, hot/cold,
life/death, love/hate, etc. So it seems to be with enchantment and
disenchantment—they come to us inextricably as a pair, parts of a
continuum of amalgams. We crave
the first from our childhood, relishing the magic of fairy tales and Santa
Claus; as adults we find a ready replacement in romantic love. Yet disenchantment is necessarily
admixed in it, unavoidable, like Iago whispering calumnies in the background. Lucretius [3]
said it well: "From the very fountain of enchantment there arises a taste
of bitterness to spread anguish amongst the flowers." We seem unable to savor the magic without also
tasting that sourness.