Befor Sunshine...

This is the name of a very good movie contrary to what the name might suggest to some people. The name might bring a lot of ideas to some minds and they may watch this but am sure will be pleasantly surprised. I am in complete awe of the person who wrote this story. I imagined that Quentin Tarantino was in a class of his own but this movie is pretty close to his school of thought. The primary focus of this movie was the guy-girl chemistry. The chemistry was heightened even more by the fact that both knew that they might not meet each other again.
The whole movie looks more like life captured as it happens. Ethan Hawke and Julie are so fantastic, that it does not look like their lines were rehearsed. Their questions and responses seem so natural.
The movie actually starts off with the two protagonists traveling in a train and they just start vibing, which seems so natural. They are still talking and are interrupted when Ethan has to get down at Vienna. He has to catch a flight to the US the next morning. Both feel that their conversation is incomplete, and so he asks her to accompany him in Vienna till the next morning. This is where the fun starts.
Every line of dialogue is written with such intelligence that it seems like we are just prying on a natural conversation. For me the whole experience was like I walked in on conversation and could not walk away until I knew how this ended. The fact that both knew that they might never see each other again, I guess made them lose their inhibitions, and they talked about every issue under the sun, including feminism, sex, past love interests, their dreams, fantasies...
The best scene in the movie according to me would have to be the one in the bus. Both are seated in the last seat and the camera is on them. The bus is moving on both are involved in a conversation. The whole scenes lasts for nearly 10 minutes, and you hardly notice this fact because it seems so natural. This would have taken a lot of effort I am sure. During this scene there are some subtleties that make it even more enjoyable. This almost stands up to the scene in Mad About You, where it lasted for over 20 minutes. The whole scene was shot with Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt outside a door, with their 3-month-old daughter inside the room. Their conversation too is so captivating that you tend to forget that this was such a long scene. To make sure you appreciate this they even make a crack about this scene before the credits roll out (in typical Mad About You) fashion. Well I am digressing here. But what the hell, it's my blog, so only my rules apply...