RITES OF PASSAGE

Richard Linklater’s rapturous 1995 romance Before Sunrise’, about a pair of Interrailing strangers, was a pure and joyous escape. But 30 years later, writes Xan Brooks, it hits different

- Xan Brooks

“The years shall run like rabbits,” says Jesse, quoting poetry to Celine at the end of Before Sunrise. It’s a midsummer morning in the city of Vienna. Church bells chiming; pigeons in the square. The film’s young lovers – played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy – are relaxing by a statue, rumpled from their long night outdoors.

On screen, they’re still there whenever we choose to drop by – him with his goatee, her with her backpack. In the real world it’s different, because those pesky rabbits keep running. Cities change and actors age and first love becomes a distant memory. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise – possibly the most rapturous film ever made about footloose, carefree youth – is 30 years in the past, and as much a historical relic as old Vienna itself.

Anniversary reissues are a dime a dozen, but the reappearance of Before Sunrise feels sympathetic, appropriate, almost a creative act in its own right. Callow Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) meet cute on the train and disembark on a whim. They have no cash for a hotel, and nothing to do until the next morning except wander and wonder and decide how much they like each other.

That’s essentially the film: two people walking and talking and pausing to kiss. These lovers have stolen a day for themselves and can skip around town like they haven’t a care in the world. But carefree youth only counts when it’s fleeting and finite. Linklater knows this and so too, on some level, do Jesse and Celine. It’s this ticking clock that makes Before Sunrise so special. It’s a film about a subject its characters are determined to avoid.