Movie review-'Before..' trilogy

This will have to be the kind of movie that could possibly lie somewhere in my imagination. Or maybe this is the kind of movie that I would have loved to imagine by myself. In either case it is but understandable that I absolutely love it.

I am talking about Linklater, Delpy and Hawke in the ‘Before’ trilogy- Before Sunrise, Before Sunset & Before Midnight. I finished watching the latest installment yesterday and thought of writing briefly about them. The movies are all about conversations that mirror life, conversations between two people in different contexts, different cities and different times of their life. The tone of the conversation changes as life takes them through different phases and the viewer can picture their life together through their 'long conversations'.. Each of the three movies focus on a different phase of life.

In the lives we live, we talk all the time with everyone around but we share the magical ease of talking or even silence with only a few people. However the magic is not just about two people, it is also about the place and the movie captures it beautifully in the picturesque backdrop of Europe. Since it is a movie it plays out in Vienna, Paris & Greece but for the lowly people not in the movie business alternative arrangements often surface out magically in our backyard all in course of a good conversation!

I guess for me the whole premise of loving the movie is the fact that I know the joy of such conversations. If I  try to draw a physical parallel for a good conversation I'd say it is like exchanging a volley over tennis net without keeping score. You run, you stretch, you challenge-play the offensive, you collaborate-play the easy shots. You just keep the flow going and the ball from hitting the ground. Now I don’t play tennis so this analogy may be technically incorrect but I watched a game few days back and I felt that this mental image was closest to what i wanted to say. A good conversation is like a game- it’s about timing, pace, humor, challenge and having fun. The two characters in the movie know how to play this game of verbal exchanges and it’s a delight to watch.

The movie is also a delectable character study, in the course of their conversations you feel as if you know them in flesh and blood. You understand how each of them thinks and how differently from the other. They bring different perspective to the same conversation, to the same situation. They bring with them their different upbringings, their different cultures and you can sense it clearly. I think the worst conversations for me are the ones where someone tries to sound like you. They might have the best intent but the moment they lose their original selves, it’s a tedious exchange- it’s no fun to listen to you. I can at least say that for myself-(I can bore myself to death, heaven save the listeners).

I purposefully didn't talk about the plot, I think it is the execution that really matters here. Meeting the love of your life in a train journey in Europe is straight from some romanticist's playbook and I would have been the first person to dismiss it, but here I am raving about the movie. A good reason to watch it I say!

Seeing the truth

Before I could begin to see the truth and type this blog, I browsed over few thoughts and recollections that I jotted down in my diary after reading a book by Hari Kunzru- My Revolutions. I read this book sometime in 2010 but a chance conversation today made me go back to my diary.
These are the words of Rumi, which open the book.

 'I used to have fiery intensity,
and a flowing sweetness
The waters were illusion
The flames, made of snow..
Was I dreaming then?
Am I awake now?'


The book tries to explore how idealism leads to violence and back to indifference. Truly, one complete revolution it is, to start and then finally end at the same spot where you started from. Is it not how a dictionary would define a revolution as? Does that make the idea of a revolution self defeating ?
So the book successfully or unsuccessfully brought me back to the verse i started with. About what lies, illusions, wars men choose to make life seem worthwhile. How day in and day out we fight out for some idealism, for some belief with fierce vitality, who is to know if that fight is truly worth it? Who is to know that one day when we'd be truly weary, we'd realize that there wasn't ever a reason to pick that fight.

Most often we are just there in the rink, taking and returning the punches, deafened by the noise around, maddened by the rush of the moment- so much so that we can hear our own heart beat, feel the blood gushing through the veins, see the nerves swell up against the taut skin. Its the one moment we feel truly alive. But what if for an instance we could actually observe ourselves unattached and unaffected from a distance, i really fear we might just look crazy possessed to our own eyes. We might as well appear fighting and defending a make believe world, just as in a dream.

I thought of our misplaced idealism in personal and social spheres. The fights that we sometimes pick up with our loved ones just for some lofty beliefs we have. How it makes us rigid not to bat our eyelid or accept things a little differently. How we throw fists in the air, say hurtful words and cry martyr. Its one drunken madness that we fail to see or we see way after the damage is all done

I thought of all the causes that men fight for. I talk of the causes that imparts a drunken righteousness to judge everyone around us. I talk of the fights were men lose their heart and humility and having lost that, fight for a higher pedestal and try to shout louder than anyone else.

The truth is each one of us needs a fight, to keep us going through each living day.However most importantly we need the heart to accept, the heart to believe in the goodness around and then to choose the right battles. The battles that we can fight in wakeful humility and blissful sleep..
 However still one can only hope, even so more for the good battles you pick that you don't get disenchanted and walk away even before the victor is announced. I have fought fiercely with all my heart only to realize that I didn't have my heart in it anymore, and so gave into the weariness and futility of the whole exercise. This disenchantment is the biggest fight and I don't know how some people fight it out when some people simply end up confounded.

Perhaps life chooses to play on our minds the same old tricks from its bag to get back at us at times..