Before Midnight

It was real and raw. It made me, someone who has never been in love or been loved, understand that life can’t just be like their night in Vienna. That truth of comfortability and whether the love extends past the ‘honeymoon’ stage was something I was not prepared to be faced with

For the life of me I can’t love this movie because I hate to see them fighting. But it also seemed inevitable. The foundation of their relationship were brief encounters and fleeting moments, of course their whole dynamic was going to change once mundanity sets in. (1)

this was saddest one.
It made me never fall in love

AAAAHHHH fav horror movies 😍

It was only yesterday after finishing Sunset that I read Ethan Hawke’s quote about the trilogy - “The first film is about what could be, the second is about what should have been. Before Midnight is about what it is.” And truly, I think that puts stages of life into perspective better than anything else I’ve ever heard or thought.

Whilst Sunrise and Sunset had this giddy optimism and romanticism about it, whilst also dealing with the harsh realities of the period granted, but Midnight instead deals with the hard truths, or “what it is”. The film is often pretty miserable, especially toward the end, with conversations leaning more resolution-heavy, before crumbling apart at a single “wrong” word. I think there’s a lot to be said about compatibility, and what it means to love “unconditionally” - whatever that means… but it’s interesting, it’s raw and it never holds back from the nitty gritty.

Writing again, like the previous two entries is nothing short of masterful; it takes some serious skill to maintain audience retention over a film with pure conversations in the way Linklater manages to achieve across this trilogy. The score is superb, the backdrop of Greece is perfect and made me desperate for a holiday - admittedly I became distracted looking at the scenery. I just think the whole package is so tidy and impactful - and to use the word yet again, real.

This is my favourite performance from the leads across the trilogy, it’s the most difficult to portray for sure. Gone is the awkwardness of meeting and re-meeting, instead witnessing a couple who’ve been together for 9 years, but still maintain their characteristics, albeit evolved, from what we’ve come to know of them. Part of it’s the writing, which of course Hawke and Delpy contributed, but the evolution of their ideals and hopes in the first film to what they are now and their subconscious reaction and disappointment about it is so emotional to me, and honestly pretty scary…

I just know this is going to be a film that sits on my mind for the next few days, it’s very rare for me to give full marks on a first watch, and at all if we’re talking in the grand calculus of everything I’ve watched - but this felt special, important even. The sort of film, and trilogy, is to be watched across a lifetime to remind you of who you were and what you are now.

Maybe I’ll revisit in 9 years time…

Bastante real. Disparó recuerdos de una relación previa.