"Baby, you are gonna miss that plane"

There's something interminably magical about Richard Linklater's Before Sun- films. I've seen both of them several times before, but only yesterday did I have the pleasure of seeing them both back to back for the first time, courtesy of some academic something-or-other.

I think there's a certain type of person who can be wholly entertained by two people talking for almost three hours all up, and that I am this type of person. What you need to do to make it work is really pay attention. Pay attention to what Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke say, the way the say it. The way they look at each other when the other is talking, or act when the other isn't looking. It's an accumulative effect of a thousand words and mannerisms to build to nothing more than two extraordinarily real people experiencing a profound connection. Most films fail in plot, development and meaning because they never properly established that real connection, and those real characters. Linklater fucks all those narrative trinkets off and strips everything right back, just to get these basics right.

In the end, though, I think its the reflection of self and society that appeals to me through these two very quiet, slow and uneventful films. It's a diluted mix of that same feeling I get from Eternal Sunshine. Although a lot of the dialogue is philosophically derivative and vapid (and although we forgive this because it sounds genuine and builds the characters well), there are occasional nuggets of gold that hit home. For me, it was Ethan Hawke professing that he always felt like a thirteen year old boy, pretending to be an adult, taking notes for when he'd have to actually do it.

And in the grand scheme of things, this couplet of movies really says a lot about the notions of romance, idealism, lost time and broken hearts. The two young lovers never met up again in Veinna, as they arranged to do at the end of the first film. We discover this at the beginning of the last. So that romantic plan went bust. Then we hear all about the subtle but drastic impact their encounter had on the rest of their lives. They seem shocked to discover that their connection really was as profound as they thought it was. Something always seemed "off" to them. Something should have happened, and it didn't. In a way, this gives the series an odd kind of romantic cynicism: yes, there is such thing as true love, but you'll probably fuck it up.

What I love most about the franchise, and the second film, is that it resolves the open ending of the first one, and then leaves us hanging yet again. Their second chance encounter ends with Ethan Hawke having a tea with Julie Delpy in her Parisian apartment. He is married with a kid, she is in a serious relationship with a war photographer. Life went on and saddled them with second best, then hooked them up again to talk about it. Yet the look on Hawke's face, the last shot of the movie and series, is one of almost unbelieving contentment. She seems happy enough too. I think getting to see each other again is close enough a happy ending for both of them.

Whether its close enough for us is our choice, I guess.