New Year's Day 2011

Happy new year to all. One of my resolutions for this year is to post here with much greater frequency - my tentative plan is to have something new up at least every two weeks. Right now I'm planning on Play and Film posts for 2010, and will hopefully have them finished within a few days.

For now, a bit about a pair of films that were not released in 2010. When I was in high school, I very much enjoyed Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, which I remembered having watched at least half a dozen times. At some point in the intervening years, however, and without having seen it again, I found myself having turned against the film - I mean, a movie consisting entirely of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy walking around Vienna, deep in philosophical conversation? How could that fail to be anything but insufferably pretentious?

Well, I read A Scanner Darkly this past autumn, and before watching Linklater's film, I decided to revisit Before Sunrise. As much as I had wanted to confirm my tenuous dislike for it, I couldn't help but fall under its spell almost immediately. Both performances are so warm and unforced, and it has all the quiet charm that I remember from so long ago. Another part of my fondness, of course, is nostalgia - Hawke and Delpy's characters were almost like old friends that I was revisiting, a fact that was only underscored when I watched the sequel, Before Sunset, a few days later. I love that Before Sunset is set nine years later, and filmed in real time, only strengthening the feeling that Jesse and Celine are real people, or could be people you know, or could be you - growing and changing with time, but still in some ways very much the same.

Anyway, I spent a few days with the two movies in my head, mulling them over, rewatching certain scenes - and singing Kath Bloom's "Come Here" to myself, which is prominently featured in the first film. Here it is: