The first film in “The Before Trilogy,” “Before Sunrise,” was released in 1995 and shows how the couple met. Jessie, on the last day of his trip across Europe, meets Céline on the train to Venice. They strike up a conversation regarding a fighting couple on the train and they quickly find a connection. After the train makes its stop, to keep the romantic spark or to heal his heartbreak, Jessie invites Céline to wander the streets of Venice until his early morning flight the next day. Reluctantly she accepts.
“Before Sunrise” is a beautiful movie overflowing with young and pure romanticism. Over the course of the film, these strangers share their innermost thoughts about human connection, philosophy, politics, ideologies and love. They debate but it is never heated. Jessie is a hopeless romantic who views the world in an opportunistic way while having a more depressive disposition when it comes to his own life. Céline is a cynical yet detached intellectual who views the less favorable nature in everything.
They fall in love in the streets of Venice but part ways and do not see each other again until nine years later. They meet in Paris in the film “Before Sunset,” but this time their love is different. It is lived in, matured and experienced but still romantic. Their reunion seemed random, but there were many factors at play. Jessie wrote a fictitious autobiographical account of their night together nine years ago in hopes that he could find her again. On his book tour his stop in Paris, coincidently, is at Céline’s favorite bookstore. She meets him there and he decides to spend the rest of his time in Paris with her, despite a flight to catch in a few short hours.
Jessie is married now with a son and is a successful writer on a book tour, and Céline has a boyfriend and works for a French environmentalist organization. Due to their romantic constraints, the way that they express their love is far different. That youthful romanticism is gone, but the love from that shared experience is still there. Throughout “Before Sunset,” the conversations seem to mirror a lot of the same topics discussed in the first film, but the approach is more mature. A much more tortured and realistic depiction of intense romance.
At the end of the film Céline playfully reminds Jessie of his flight that he’s going to miss, and he gives her a playful but deeply romantic look, smiles and says, “I know.” Throughout the whole film, Céline reminds him of his departing flight, but Jessie continuously brushes it off, telling her that he has time. What makes this ending so perfect is the realization that Jessie made up his mind about missing his flight from the moment he laid eyes on her again after so long apart.
In the third film, “Before Midnight,” Jessie and Céline are now living in Paris with twin girls. Jessie must navigate fatherhood with a son who lives across the Atlantic.
The film wraps up the themes of the trilogy perfectly. A brutally realistic depiction of love, removed from the youthfully ignorant romance of the first film and the matured yet intense love of the second. “Before Midnight” follows the couple facing a culmination of resentment, discontent and frustrations that arose from their passionate affair.
Their once unshakeable love has transformed into something they no longer recognize. Their encounter in Venice is now a fleeting memory of a raw romance. Jessie holds resentment for putting his son through a hard divorce and living situation because he decided to leave his wife for Céline. Céline resents Jessie for continuously disappointing her in small ways over the course of their relationship
Ironically, Jessie made a predictive statement in the film where he says, “I mean if we got married, after a few years, you’d hate a lot of my mannerisms.” Even the most fiery and passionate loves end up fizzling out.
Love is transient, though it is not impermanent. Truthfully, our experiences are transient. Our favorite songs can grow stale with time. Our favorite dish can fall out of favor through repeated visits. With Jessie and Céline, the love they shared in Venice is long gone. It was replaced with the harsh realities of the complexities of human emotion. But love still exists. It is not the same love they shared but it is a new one built on the forgotten remnants of the past.
When Jessie goes to talk to Céline after she told him she might not love him anymore in “Before Midnight,” he approaches the conversation initially with the same style of charm that made her fall in love with him all those years ago. Now, 18 years later, that charm doesn’t work like it used to. He pleads with Céline to make her realize that he’s just trying to cheer her up despite the reality that lays ahead of them. After failed attempts of reconciliation with her he says, “This is real life. It’s not perfect, but it’s real. And if you can’t see it, then you’re blind, alright?”
Love is many things, but it is not perfect. Like any other human experience, its beauty is in its imperfections. Love was never meant to be permanent; it is always coming and going, finding new forms and figures. The only thing we can control is how we choose to interpret and experience the transient nature of it all.
