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THE
MOVIE MYSTIC
By Stephen Simon
BEFORE SUNSET
Directed by the brilliant Richard Linklater (WAKING LIFE), BEFORE
SUNSET is a sequel to BEFORE SUNRISE, shot 9 years earlier
with the same director and two-actor cast. SUNRISE was about
two young people who met for one night in Paris, fell in love, made love,
and promised to meet again. SUNSET picks up many years later when
one of the pair (Ethan Hawke) has written a book and is back in Paris
where his lost love (Julie Delpy) comes to his book signing and they reunite
to reminisce and explore what happened.
That all happens in the first 5 minutes – after that, the film is
a tour-de-force plunge into love, vulnerability, lost innocence, and longing.
Never have I seen two actors so completely inhabit their characters any
more than Hawke and Delpy. They both give bravura, wrenching, witty, and
devastatingly honest Academy Award-caliber performances.
BEFORE SUNSET explores moments of grace in our lives in which
we encounter others who inspire, empower, and stimulate us to plumb the
bottomless depth of our souls. The film is a bracing mixture of comedy,
pathos, drama, and brilliantly insightful dialogue that combine to create
one of those rare moments in film which will last forever in the hearts
and minds of those who are open to the resonance of its revelations about
the human condition. See it with an open heart and I believe that you
will be as enthralled and enchanted as I was.
(Stephen
Simon produced such films as Somewhere in Time and What
Dreams May Come, produced and directed INDIGO, and
wrote The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire
Our Lives. He also co-founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle http://www.spiritualcinemacircle.com/
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