Ok. Wow.

I think i just saw a movie that will stay with me for some time, if not the rest of my life. Maybe i'll look back on this post in a few years and cringe at how cliched that sounds, but that's how i feel right now.

Before Sunset. Just caught it with a bunch of friends. A movie that seems so natural, and yet is so well-put together. It's a sequel to Before Sunrise, a 1994 movie in which characters played by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke meet up and forge a connection over one night in Vienna. They agree to meet 6 months later in Vienna.... and this movie is about what has happened to the two characters 9 years later.

I won't go into the details of the movie, but suffice to say that the movie is suffused with tones of bittersweet reminiscence of what could have been, and hope that a re-connection could have been established. Julie Delpy (Celine) and Ethan Hawke (Jesse) both fall into the easy rhythms of their characters, and something in the way they talk, look and enjoy each other's presence indicates that the two of them have a soul-deep connection that neither can explain.

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Before Sunrise, which i thought was a little too talky at times. This one is emotionally richer, and the fact that it takes place over 80 minutes of real-time makes the characters and the conversation much more real. There are great lines, and great conversational humour, and there are moments of quiet when a shiver just goes up your spine. When Jesse and Celine's emotions and pain spill out into the open, I couldn't help but feel for these characters.

Even now, thinking back on certain scenes, make me feel both happy and sad. Sad for the lost chances, and yet happy that Celine and Jesse got a second chance. So many thoughts are bouncing in my mind right now... but few movies have ever made me feel this fuzzy and happy inside.

Maybe it's because i identify with the movie. Being in a long-distance relationship, feeling like sometimes i'm running in place till we can be together again, envious of friends who have left Singapore or managed to settle down with their significant others in Singapore....

Such a movie gives me renewed hope. Light at the end of the tunnel... and all that