That's the line I remember watching Before Sunset.
Two avant-garde films from Richard Linklater's dialogue between two people.
Two people, a city, keep walking, keep talking, happy, sad, sweet, helpless and in love. It's the same for both movies, the same two people, but the time has changed, a full 10 years apart.
In Before Sunrise, two young people came to the dining car to seek peace on the train to Paris because they couldn't bear the quarrel between their neighbors. By coincidence, they met each other and chatted very well. Vienna arrived, he was going to get off there, and she was going to Paris, the two smiled at each other, and said nothing but Goodbye. Just as he was about to get out of the car, he mustered up his courage and turned to her and said, "Can I let you spend a day with me in Vienna?" She looked out the window nervously, hesitated for a moment, smiled and said, "Okay," he said. Said his name was Jesse, she said her name was Celine.
The whole movie starts with an unusually bold and romantic request. The two walk through the streets of Vienna, hold their breath and listen to an old song together in the CD shop, sit on the Ferris wheel and watch the sunset, and watch the sunset by the river. Listen to a street poet write them poems and drink wine on the grass in the park until dawn. They found the true love of a lifetime in one night, and even though it came suddenly, it grabbed the hearts of two lonely people so powerfully.
Celine was going to Paris by train, and Jesse was going to leave for the United States. He took her on the train. The two hugged and kissed tightly. They agreed to meet in Vienna this time next year. They were lucky to find each other in the vast crowd, but they threw each other into the crowd.
This is probably youth, when you are young you always believe in commitment, believe in romance, and so bravely pin your hopes on unknown variables. But it is precisely because he is young, with such a fairy tale dream in his mind, that Celine jumped off the train with Jesse without hesitation.
That night, on the grass in the park, Celine said she had fallen in love with him when she promised to get off the train with him.
Ten years later, the same director, the same actor, met by chance in another city - Paris. When they meet again, the knowing smile that meets their eyes is better than any language, and the tacit understanding of the heart is almost perfect at that moment. It was only then that Jesse became a best-selling novelist and Celine was a radical environmental governance researcher.
I remember when Jesse was interviewed at the Shakespeare Bookstore on the banks of the Seine, he turned around and saw Celine smiling at him behind the curtain and in front of the bookshelf. After a moment of silence, both of them couldn't help being surprised. After all, ten years have passed. Now, who would have thought that they would find each other in a certain corner of a street after they lost each other for ten years?
Like ten years ago, the two talked as they walked and talked endlessly, because they hadn't seen each other for a long time, because there were too many things to talk about, because they never expected to have such an opportunity to meet again, and they were a little overwhelmed. Celine speaks faster and gets more emotional, while Jesse matures but still retains the faint wickedness she once had. The two talk too much eagerly, wondering how each other has changed over the long decade, because in 50 minutes Jesse will be flying to another city to promote her novel.
The two didn't know where to start, so they talked about hunger, the environment, and hope, and finally they talked about each other and the promise they didn't keep ten years ago. Celine couldn't go to Vienna because her grandmother died suddenly the day before, and Jesse was disappointed to fly to the other side of the ocean in order to go to Vienna and steal her father's money. He said that he later wrote the novel because he was afraid that one day he would forget that night that should be remembered in a lifetime. So he wrote down that night, hoping to find the lost her on this big planet in this way. It's just that he didn't expect him to become a best-selling novelist. Celine had read the novel countless times. She knew it was him, but she didn't go to him.
He said he had been thinking about her for so many years, and even sitting in the car to church on his wedding day, he saw a figure on the street and thought it would be her. At this moment, Celine, who was sitting quietly beside her, suddenly looked sad like a blue lake. She said that she was living in New York at the time, in the apartment where he thought he saw her back.
For a moment, the two were devastated and lost their language. Such coincidences and misses are unbearable for anyone.
Ten years later, Jesse has a family of her own, but she is not happy; Celine has a new boyfriend, but she no longer believes in love. Because for them, all the romance and love in a lifetime blooms and burns out that night.
The just-right ending of the movie is the most memorable part of the movie. The smoke ring gradually dissipated, but it left the charming smell in the air for a long time. Jesse came to Celine's house and listened intently to her playing the guitar and singing the song she wrote about that night ten years ago, about missing him, about him.
He took a deep breath, lay down on the sofa and looked at her closely, feeling a kind of long-lost happiness and helpless sadness, he didn't say anything, because he suddenly didn't know what words to use to express this sweet sadness . Just like the happiness that belongs to me, even if it is not on me now, it is enough to see that it exists so well where my eyes can see.
She shyly sang all the lyrics, as if it was a promise to each other, she left the most important part of her heart to him, guarding it. Whenever I play and sing that song, it is like stepping back in time, back to that night ten years ago.
Celine put one of her favorite JAZZ CDs on the record player, and the music came out. She imitated the singer and danced immediately. Jesse still looked at him with a smile, her eyes were complicated and full of love. She said to the music, if you don't leave, then will miss the plane... the
movie is over.
Indeed, waiting and being waited require the same tacit understanding. Who can look back in the dimly lit place, waiting for the gradually moving back; but more often, we look back suddenly and find that there is no one behind us.
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