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When I read somewhere that this year was the 25th Anniversary of the film ‘Before Sunrise’ – the first film of the Before Trilogy- , it drew my interest. I had watched this film but not the other two films of the series. So I watched all of the films in the trilogy which I have found very pleasant either for their stories or the venues they were shot in. I mostly liked the first then the second film but all of them leave a pleasant feeling in you and capture you with the lovely scenes and anecdotes in them.

The Before Trilogy consists of three films – ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995), ‘Before Sunset’ (2004) and ‘Before Midnight’ (2013)- directed by Richard Linklater starring Ethan Hawke as the American Jesse and Julie Delpy as the French Céline. The films were shot in chronological order – at nine-year intervals- with tiny budgets based on romantic and clever dialogues between Jesse and Céline in the streets of Vienna, in Paris and in a seaside village in Greece respectively.

Besides the entertaining dialogues within a minimalistic -not much happens other than a couple walking and talking- but an absorbing plot and the venues, what striked me about the film series was to learn the real touching story behind them which inspired the director Richard Linklater. Linklater had met a woman called Amy Lehrhaupt in a toy shop in Philadelphia in 1989 who inspired the film ‘Before Sunrise’. They had spent the night talking and walking around the city together. They had lost contact throughout the years. Linklater tried to find Lehrhaupt again and he had expected to see her at the film’s release in 1995 but this was not possible since Amy had died by then in a motorcycle accident in 1994. Linklater had learned her death from a friend of Amy’s in 2010. Up until then he had hoped to see Amy one day.

Before Sunrise

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The film is about the young American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the French student Céline (Julie Delpy) who meet on a train. Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother in Budapest. They spend a romantic night in Vienna walking around the city and talking. Although not much happens in the film other than their talking, their conversation is so fluent, smart, funny and so warm and their acting is so natural that as this combines with the cosy places and the beautiful surrounding they are in, you don’t realize how fast the film ends leaving a smile in your face and a warmth in your heart. Jesse and Celine share their ideas about life and love and reveal a lot about themselves as they enjoy their conversation probably also thinking that they will never see each other again.

‘Before Sunrise’ had its world premiere at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It won ‘Silver Bear’ award for ‘best director’ at Berlin International Film Festival. The film received high praise and a lot of positive reviews and started a co-operation between Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy which led to the other two films in the series.

The Scenes I Liked and What I have discovered in The Film

In one of the scenes, Jesse and Céline stop by an outdoor cafe where they meet a palm reader who looks at the palm of Céline and tells interesting wise things about her which Jesse makes fun of. I liked the cafe and its atmosphere and its view at night. I found out in my search that this cafe is ”Kleines Café” in Vienna located at Franziskanerplatz, very close to St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

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In another scene, as the couple walk alongside the Danube Canal, they are approached by a beggar looking man who, instead of begging, offers them to write a poem with a word of their choice and that they pay if they like the poem. They choose the word ‘milkshake’ and the man quickly writes and reads the following poem -originally written by the American poet David Jewell in 1986 and named as ‘Delusion Angel‘- which I liked a lot. The poem suits very well to the atmosphere and the situation the couple is as well:

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Delusion Angel

Daydream, delusion, limousine, eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
I’m delusion angel
I’m fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don’t want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we’re going
Latched in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I’ll carry you
You’ll carry me
That’s how it could be
Don’t you know me?
Don’t you know me by now?

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In the scene above, the couple sit in a traditional Viennese cafe – Café Sperl located at ‘Gumpendorferstrasse 11- 1060 Wien‘ and make fake phone calls to their best friends telling their friends about how they met and what happened between them. It was an intimate and a cute scene as a very clever way for the couple to reveal their feelings to one another.

Vienna, a city of art and once the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is also known for its distinctive and elegant cafes. Socialising in cafes is a prominent feature of the cultural life in Vienna. I liked the book “Vienna – Portrait of a City” here in Amazon. As well as its cafes, the desserts and creamy coffees of Austria are also popular. You may check here for the book “Austrian Desserts” (including Linzer torte and apfelstrudel )written by Austrian pastry master Toni Mörwald, and award-winning restaurant critic Christoph Wagner. If you want a Viennese coffee accompany your Austrian dessert, check here.

Before Sunset

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‘Before Sunset’, the second film in the series, starts at a bookstore in Paris where Jesse is being interviewed about his new bestseller book which was inspired by the night he had spent with Céline in Vienna nine years ago. As Jesse answers the questions of the journalists about the book and about his encounter with Céline, he sees her standing behind them and smiling at him. After the interview, Jesse and Céline leave the bookstore together and walk in streets of Paris talking about themes like work, politics and their feelings. They reveal how their lives have changed during the nine years they spent apart. Jesse admits that he wrote his book in the hope of seeing Céline again yet they have only a few hours until Jesse leaves for the airport for his plane.

The Places I Liked In The Film

I found the bookstore in the first scene of the film very cute. It is called ”Shakespeare and Company”, situated on the Left Bank of the Seine River opposite of Notre Dame (37 rue de la Bucherie, Paris) which is a regular bookstore with a reading library specialized in English literature. The bookstore has activities like Sunday tea, poetry readings and writers’ meetings. It has rooms upstairs to rent to the writers as well. In the film, Jesse tells Celine that he had stayed in the room upstairs the night before. In my research, I read that many famous writers like Henry Miller and Anais Nin slept there. Paul Auster, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Jacques Chirac were also among its customers.

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The traditional tea parties held in the bookstore as announced in its web site (www.shakespeareandcompany.com) sounded very thoughtful and nice to me:

”Panmelys is a Welsh poet and painter living in Paris. Every Sunday, she hosts a “Live Poets’ Circle” and “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” from 4 to 6pm in the library of Shakespeare and Company and has been doing so for over 20 years. She asks you to come with a “poem in your pocket and a song in your heart.” In return, she’ll give you a cup of tea, a biscuit, and—if you’re lucky—a piece of her homemade cake, while you listen to some wonderful poetry. Entry is free and open to all.”

They also announce that The Tea Party is taking a break because of some building work going on in the shop to restart later. I hope they continue to keep this tradition.

There is also a cafe -‘Shakespeare and Company Café’ located right next to the bookshop which did not exist in the time of the film as it opened in 2015 and is said to be famous for its lemon pie.

‘Shakespeare and Company’ has also an online store which ships online. If you plan to visit this bookstore when you go to Paris as I do, you can place an order on their online store beforehand and check the ‘pick up in store’ option to buy the book(s) you want when you are there.

You can check here in Amazon for the books about ”Shakespeare and Company” – a legendary bookstore in the heart of Paris.

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After Jesse and Céline start to walk in the streets of Paris talking to each other, they see a typical French cafe in cherry-red color where Celiné offers to stop by. They go inside the cafe, sit at a table and continue their conversation.

This pretty cafe is ”Le Pure Café”, 14 rue Jean Macé at Impasse Franchemont (Charonne station by metro) in the 11th ‘arrondissement’ in Paris.

No doubt that the cafés of Paris, the city of romance, is famous all over the world. Enjoying your coffee and croissant or a glass of wine, you can sit for hours in a French cafe either watching around as people pass by or reading or writing something. I discovered the book titled “A Table in Paris: The Cafés, Bistros, and Brasseries of the World’s Most Romantic City” in Amazon which you can check here, and the book titled “The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris: The Best Restaurants, Bistros, Cafés, Markets, Bakeries, and More” written by Patricia Wells, a former restaurant critic for The International Herald Tribune, which you can check here.

I also loved the books I came across in Amazon titled “The Paris Cafe Cookbook : Rendezvous and Recipes from 50 Best Cafes” here which includes classic French desserts like tarte tatin and chocolate-hazelnut-filled crepes, and the book titled “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Taste of France: Recipes inspired by the cafés and bars of Fitzgerald’s Paris and the Riviera in the 1920s” here which I found very interesting as it evokes a gourmet journey to France during the time of American writers and artists with attractive photos of dishes like Croque Monsieur and Croque Madame that I like.

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Towards the end of the film, Jesse offers to take Céline to her apartment. I liked the hidden pretty courtyard in the film where Céline lives. In my search, I found out that the address of the place given by Céline to the Jesse’s driver in the film was not the right one. The real place which is seen as Céline’s courtyard apartment in the film is said to be on ‘La cour de l’Étoile-d’Or‘- on the north side of rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, close to the Bastille Square (‘La place de la Bastille‘) which is a historic alleyway in Paris.

Before Midnight

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‘Before Midnight’, the third film in the series, picks up the story again nine years after the events of the second film ‘Before Sunset’. What a consistency! There is a nine year-interval between each film in the series both in real life and in the film plots. At the final film of the series, Jesse and Céline spend a summer vacation together in Kardamyli (Kardamili), on the Peloponnese coast in Southern Greece.

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The home in the film is said to be once owned by Patrick Leigh Fermor, an English writer who was made an honorary citizen of the village for his participation in the Greek resistance, and his wife Joan Leigh Fermor, an English photographer, who lived there together until Patrick’s death in 2011. The house, also known as the Leigh Fermor House, is said to be designed and built by Patrick in an olive grove on a cliff top at Kardamyli which became a gathering place for their friends, artists and intellectuals from different parts of the world including Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Lawrence Durrell, Stephen Spender, Giorgos Seferis, and Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas among them (Wikipedia). I can imagine that the real life actors of the long table where Jesse and Céline gather with friends in the film eating and chatting about life were these people.

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The Leigh Fermors decided to donate their estate to the Benaki Museum in 1996 which maintains and operates the home today. According to the couple’s desire, the house is to be used to host intellectuals and scholars (writers, researchers, artists, poets, etc) who are looking for a quiet and an inspiring place to work (thenationalherald.com). In the summer months – June through August- the whole property can be booked through Aria Hotels.

I have read that Patrick Leigh Fermor set off an on foot journey across Europe starting from London in 1933 at the age of eighteen. You can check here in Amazon for the books about Patrick Leigh Fermor and his journey.

The final scene of the film

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Towards the end of the film, Jesse and Céline have an argument about their present and future at a hotel room. Jesse feels guilty about his teenage son Hank who lives in Chicago with his mother and wants them to consider moving to Chicago to be closer to Hank. Whereas Céline has a career at environmental works in Paris considering a job with the French government. The argument gets fierce and Celine leaves the room slamming the door. She sits alone at the hotel’s outdoor restaurant. Jesse joins her. They start to talk and the medium softens eventually with Jesse’s jokes. I want to share a part of the dialogue from the last scene which shows the humorous character of Jesse and his wise games. Jesse speaks to Celine as:

Jesse : ” I know something about tonight that you don’t know. … .Something important. See, I know because I’ve actually already lived through this night. … . I’m a time traveler. … . I have a time machine up in my room. … . I’ve just traveled all the way from the future. I was just with your 82 year oldself who gave me a letter to read to you. ...”

As I searched, the hotel they stay at is ‘The Westin Resort, Costa Navarino‘ in Messinia (Messenia), Greece. The place (the hotel’s outdoor cafe) the couple talks at a beautiful Mediterranean night under the shimmering moon light looks very peaceful. I especially liked the song playing at the end of the film which suits perfectly with this medium. The melody or the rhythm of the song reflects very well the romance between the couple and ups and downs in their relationship. The name of the song is ”Gia Ena Tango” (”For A Tango”) by Haris Alexiou.

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The success of the film ‘Before Sunrise’ was also the start of the fruitful co-operation between Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater. It is stated that the three were reworking the script before and during the production and that Hawke and Delpy co-wrote the screenplay of the films “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” with Linklater, both of which earned Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay.

There have been interviews of the journalists with this team and talks among the fans whether there will be a fourth ‘Before’ movie on schedule -nine years after the last movie- in 2022. If the team considers another movie to add to the series and if Linklater ever reads this post, my venue suggestion would be either ‘Chicago’ -where Jesse’s son in the film lives- and / or ‘New York’ -where both Jesse and Celine had lived once before having met. Both Chicago and New York are charming American cities. Since Jesse is American and Celine had lived there once, it would be nice to watch the continuation of their story in US, as a couple in the peak of their careers.

Whether another film arrives or not, ‘Before’ series are one of cinema’s most loved trilogies that reveal a perfect harmony of humor and romance.

Note: You can check here in Amazon for Before Sunrise / Before Sunset DVD set and here for Before Midnight DVD. Alternatively, you can check here for Before Trilogy set in Blu-ray or DVD.

You can also check the other links which I gave within this post above having been inspired by Before Trilogy, like culinary or cafe books about Vienna and Paris.