Before Sunset / Before Midnight
Finished — 2024-12-08Started — 2024-12-02
Jon recommended these movies as “friend homework”, as a specimen of what he loves in film and storytelling. (Notably he did not include Before Sunrise, considering the more mature later entries to be most relevant to us.) Every moment of the film was infused with that personal meaning, adding a layer of enjoyment at imagining the film’s significance to my dear friend. My initial reactions were superficial, comparing the attitudes and experiences of these characters to my own worldview, and noting how unrecognizable they seemed. Jon assumed that his friend homework had “failed.” But as weeks and even years went by, I found the images, conversations, and characters resurfacing in unexpected moments, delivering the “delayed detonations of pleasure” that O’Leary attributed to Wolfe, and that I find are what I seek most in art. When I watch film, this is what I want it to do.