By Shelby
One thing I like about Netflix Instant is that it offers a lot of ’80s and ’90s movies in high definition. When you’ve only ever seen a movie on VHS before, it’s like discovering a whole new film when you finally see it in HD. I got that treat last week when I re-watched Austinite Richard Linklater‘s 1995 talk-heavy love story Before Sunrise.
I’ve long loved this movie, which, like Linklater’s more famous Dazed and Confused, all unfolds over the course of one night, and having recently returned from Vienna, I was really excited to spot newly familiar landmarks. But Vienna’s amazing architecture pales in comparison to the love story of Jesse and Celine, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who are both insanely gorgeous in this movie (and in HD, no less). After having the ultimate meet-cute on a train, the American guy and the French girl decide to spend one night together walking around the city before they each head home, and they fill it by having those super intense, highly self-obsessed conversations that you can only have when you’re (a) in your late teens or early 20s and (b) totally infatuated with the other person.
Now that I’m a little older, I actually find the follow-up, Before Sunset, way more romantic. Set and filmed nine years after the original movie, this honest but equally lovely story tells how that promise at the end of Before Sunrise turned out and what the ensuing years have meant for Jesse and Celine. This time, the two spend an afternoon in Celine’s native Paris before Jesse has to catch a flight back to New York. Before Sunset is also available in HD on Netflix Instant, making for a wonderful double feature.
For more, check out the Before Sunrise trailer.
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