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Yesterday I was browsing through the movie reviews for this weekend’s releases. I came across a familiar rant from a critic subjected to the latest star-driven, inane romcom from Hollywood. He was wondering why anyone would pay good money to watch two worthless and insufferable characters laboring through a stupidity fest. It inspired me to revisit the protagonists from the two movies which together make up the perfect romantic double bill for me. Now here I met two people who are intelligent, articulate, witty, passionate and very, very real. Though they don’t do much else other than talk, I was sad to let go of them when the movie was over.

I am talking about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Both the movies were written and directed by Richard Linklater, the master of slacker movies. He adopts a direct, linear style for narration in both. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are credited with assisting Linklater in writing the screenplay for Before Sunset. Like Dazed and Confused and Tape, these two movies also take place over the course of a few hours each in a single day. The second movie was made nine years after the first one and the events in it are also set nine years later.

The premise is deceptively simple. Ethan Hawke plays Jesse, an American guy who is on a Europe trip. He meets Celine, a pretty French girl on a train. They strike up a conversation. Jesse is supposed to get off at Vienna. He convinces Celine to come and spend the day with him, just to see if their connection is anything more than a fleeting infatuation. She agrees on an impulse. They end up walking around the streets for a day and a night. In times when people find it difficult to communicate even with their loved ones, these two talk and argue so easily about anything and everything in the universe…from first sexual feelings to reincarnations to the inscrutability of desires and relationships. The dialogue has an enchanting freshness. It is the kind of natural tête-à-tête any literate person would love to have with his/her companion. I could relate to it so readily that at times I almost forgot I was watching a movie.

It is philosophical without being pretentious. It captures the beauty of Vienna without turning into a tourist trip. Jesse and Celine rather prefer to explore the cobbled streets, the nooks and crannies. They have a number of interesting encounters. They meet a couple of amateur actors who are staging a play about a cow. They visit a cemetery where the anonymous dead washed up in the Danube River are buried. Celine gets her palm read by a fortune-teller. A street poet, described as a ‘Viennese variation of a bum’ writes a poem with the word milkshake in it, in exchange for money. They share their impressions of each other by making pretend calls to their friends while sitting across the table in a restaurant.

They express cynicism externally. But the hope and romance of youth is still alive in their hearts. They know that most probably they are not going to meet again. They want something to come of this one day. But are afraid. They end up making love in a park, drinking wine borrowed from a friendly bartender.

The next morning in the naivety of youth, they decide not to exchange numbers or addresses. As such things just die off over time in a rather unspectacular fashion. They plan to meet at the same station six months hence.

In the second movie, Before Sunset, Jesse has got one of his books published. Of course the book is a thinly veiled account of the incidents from Before Sunrise. He is on a promotion trip. During a press conference on his last stop in Paris, in a small, cozy bookstore, he sees Celine standing outside. So, they didn’t meet at the Vienna platform after all. They have a few hours before Jesse’s flight to New York. They walk and talk yet again.

It is interesting to compare the conversations in the two movies. Here, there is a semblance of awkwardness initially. After all 9 years have passed. Both try to give the impression that they are content with their lives. Celine is working for an NGO kind of organization. Thus, she is contributing her bit towards correcting whatever’s wrong with the world. And Jesse is happily married and a published author.

However, the earlier spontaneity and forthrightness is regained soon. And the weariness of life, of approaching middle-age, of a life passing them by turns evident. They have been reasonably successful by ordinary standards. But like most young people, they had expected something extraordinary. Now they have lost those illusions. The cruelty of time and fading dreams has made them wiser but joyless.

And the regret. If they had met, they might have ended up hating each other after a period. The operative word here is ‘might’. They were unable to forget each other. That day was like the peak of their ardently idealistic, idyllic youth. The spark is still there. But it’s too late now. But they can’t help reminiscing and conjecturing. If it sounds depressing, rest assured it’s not. Rather, the tone adopted by the script is more melancholic in nature.

This is one of the rare instances where the sequel flows organically from the original. The first one is the story of two carefree, smart young people having a chance meeting and turning it into an intense, memorable experience. The latter installment is more introspective and mature in nature. Together the two halves make one glorious whole, an unforgettable vignette of love found and lost.