I'd been meaning to see the 1995 film Before Sunrise since, well, 1995, but I'd never got around to it until Kris put it on our Netflix queue. Strangely, I wasn't going to watch it now — Joel and Andrew and I had a date to kill Troggs in the Ragefire Chasm — despite my desire to see it. However, Kris watched the film in the room while I played World of Warcraft, and I found myself splitting my attention between both activities.

Before Sunrise, according to Kris, "isn't like other movies". She's right. It's a talky film, with little drama, little conflict, little anything besides conversation. It's like My Dinner With Andre for young adults.

The premise is this: Jesse, a twenty-three-year-old American, is traveling around Europe via rail. Selene, a young French woman, sits next to him, and they strike up a conversation. They're both so into this conversation, so into exploring each other, that they both overcome inhibitions to get off the train together in Vienna. They spend the evening and the night together, just talking. They walk through gardens and churches and parks. They venture into an amusement park. They meet a variety of average people, like the two actors they stop to ask for direction:

Skinny: This is a play we're both in, and we would like to invite you.
Selene: You're actors?
Skinny: No, not professional actors, uh, part-time actors, for fun.
Fatman: It's a play about a cow, and an Indian searching for it. There are also in it politicians, Mexicans...
Skinny: Russians, Communists,
Fatman: Russians.
Jesse: So, you have a real cow on stage.
Skinny: No, not a real cow. Its an actor in a cow costume.
Fatman: [Indicating Skinny] And he's the cow.
Skinny: Yes, I am the cow. And the cow is a bit weird.
Fatman: The cow has a disease.
Skinny: She's acting a bit strange, like a dog. If someone throws a stick, she fetches it, and brings it back. And she can smoke, with her hooves, and everything.
Selene: Great.
Fatman: And as you see, there is the address. Its in the Second district.
Skinny: Near the Prata. You know the Prata?
Selene: Oh, the big Ferris Wheel?
Skinny: By the wheel, yes.
Selene: Oh, we should go.
Skinny: Yes, the wheel, everybody knows the wheel.
Fatman: Perhaps you can go to the Prata before the play. It starts at 21:30.
Jesse: 21:30?
Skinny: That's 9:30.
Selene: 9:30.
Jesse: 9:30? oh, right, right. Okay, great, well, what's the name of this play?
Skinny: Uh...
Fatman: It translates as 'Bring me the horns ...
Skinny & Fatman: ... of Wilmington's cow'
Skinny: Ja I'm Wilmington's cow.

Jesse and Selene have their fortunes told. They share coffee. And the whole time they're talking. They have an immediate, soulful connection, the likes of which rarely occurs. Will they part in the morning?

Much of the conversation is mundane, but some of it attains a higher level:

Selene: If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but... who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.

Kris is right: it's not a typical movie. I don't think it's a great film, but it is quite good, and most of all, it's completely engrossing. After Andrew and Joel and I had finished killing Troggs, I watched the movie again.

The stars of Before Sunrise — Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy liked the film so much, they so strongly identified with their characters, that they wrote a sequel, 2004's Before Sunset. This is a short film (only eighty minutes), and very much in the same vein as the first. Most reviewers thought highly of it, but I found it mildly disappointing. Still, it has some great moments:

Selene: Have you ever spent some time in Eastern Europe?
Jesse: Eastern...no, I...
Selene: No? I remember, as a teenager I went to Warsaw, when it was still a strict Communist regime — which I don't approve of at all...
Jesse: Oh yeah, sure you do.
Selene: No, I don't.
Jesse: Ha, I was just kidding.
Selene: But something about being there was very interesting, I found. After a couple of weeks something changed in me. The city was quite gloomy and grey, but after a while my brain seemed...clearer: I was writing a lot more in my journal, ideas I'd never thought of before...
Jesse: Communist ideas?
Selene: Listen, I'm not...
Jesse: Sorry, I'm...
Selene: Okay, okay.
Jesse: Go on.
Selene: Okay. I'll send you to a gulag or something. No. Well, it took me a while to figure out why I felt, you know, so different. Then one day as I was walking through the Jewish cemetery — I don't know why, but it occurred to me there — I realized I had spent the last two weeks away from most of my habits. TV was in a language I didn't understand. There was nothing to buy, no advertisements anywhere. So all I had been doing was walk around, think, and write. My brain felt like it was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy, and I have to say, it was almost like a natural high. I felt so peaceful inside. No strange urge to be somewhere else, to shop. Maybe it could have seemed like boredom at first, but it quickly became very, very soulful. It was interesting, you know?

I've experienced something like this myself, but on a more limited scale. During our Alaskan cruise last summer, I as cut off from my daily habits, and it was liberating. I was still exposed to normal American culture, however, and so was not completely free. Also, on those brief weekends spent camping, I feel a similar liberation, though the period is too short to really know the feeling well.

These two films are unique. They're crafted with care. They're loving and sweet. I think that many of you might like them.

Custom Box Service is open from seven to five, Monday through Friday. Normally, I work seven to three every day (but only til noon on Friday). Nick works from about ten to five. In this way, we have complete coverage of the phones at all times.

Nick is on vacation, though, spending a month in Italy. As a result, I've changed my schedule so that I'm in the office from nine to five every day of the week. It's a bit strange, actually. I like the extra time in the morning, but I don't think I like the loss of time in the afternoon. Or the traffic.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Whose Rules?   Which rules, Tammy? God's rules? Which god? Whose interpretation of these rules?

2003 — Welcome to the House of Leaves   This connection of book to music is a fun idea. I only hope that the book can live up to the elaborate edifice which has been created around it.