Before Sunrise is a story about how a guy met a girl in a
train and they hang out for one night. And they just chill, talking about
anything and everything under the sun while, at the same time, walking through beautiful
Vienna with its trams and amazing buildings. It's fascinating how easy it is,
just two people talking the kind of talking that makes you feel so alive
afterward because you've contemplated love and life and you come out knowing
that life is amazing, your life is amazing and maybe you've fallen in love with
the other person. It's like When Harry Met Sally and Annie Hall and stuff. What
I liked most about them wasn't (just) the sappy romance and the happily ever after,
I liked the other stuff they talked about, the ideas and the jokes. Stuff that
didn't necessarily drive the story but rather explored the other facets of
their world and imagination. The stuff of dreams and idle contemplation. It's
the art form that everyone is unconsciously (or consciously) perfecting, the
conveyance of thought to drive the spark of connection. It's the stuff that
makes people become friends, fall in love, drive changes.
I suppose I want to do it in writing. Hehe.
And I love talking like that. All these nonsensical bits as
well as the deep, serious ones. These moments are very hard to catch. Not
everyone wants to contemplate the meaning of life all the time. These heavy
flow of ideas could get exhausting. And maybe one day, with a limited
understanding of it all, you’d find it boring. It's like going to the same
lesson every day for a long period of time.
But I just like talking this way. And it doesn't have to be
about you or me. It could be about politics, oil digging, baking, and phones.
Anything. I'm still willing to be interested and learn and try to comment and question
my way through the topics, the world’s we're exploring. I love talking nonsense
too, if you don't mind the horrible frame of my black humour and raucous
innuendos being in the way. I like talking about food, about books, anything.
It rapidly culls down my immediate friends. I'm not one of those people that a lot
of people instantly love, being to awkward and average looking. I have to
resort to some other means of trickery to get some friends. And this is
apparently how I have decided to do it. It also has makes I am easily swayed by
it. It’s so easy to adore someone who can talk back and engage me in ways would
affect me way after, like with a haunting thought or phrase.
That's another reality the characters had to face, the
modern definition of a relationship. What does love mean? How do we find it?
How would it look like? How would we know? Even more so if you NEVER had any experience
at anything at all. I've had zero experience. ZERO. It sounds pathetic to a
certain extent. But I'm not sad about it. Just a little paranoid. However, it's
not so bad when you've listened to enough stories to figure out that most of it
sucks, the fumbling and missteps. More often than not it's just drama. I have a
feeling if I started any earlier I'd be really dumb about it. I've had time to
figure out what I won't compromise on. And that's really important to me. But
it also still leaves me clueless on what a relationship is. From what I hear
it's about being connected to that person 24/7, like an umbilical cord. It'd
the monopoly of attention; when one side wants to look at other things, the
other person can't bear it. It's the loss of privacy and independence. The
other person is supposed to know everything now and can't do something without
the other. You can't flirt, you're subject to disapproval to their codes and
standards, and you might even have to give in to sex. It doesn't make any sense
to corner yourself in that way. But one obvious advantage is that you're not
alone. Being alone just seems to terrify people. It still seems, to me, to be
the wrong reasons. When I go in, it'll be for the right ones I hope.
Back to the movie!
Another thing that strikes me about this movie is its
continuity. This is only the first. Then there's another story that takes place
9 years later, it's called Before Sunset and it takes place in Paris. And there
will be another one coming out in 2013, 9 years later. It's amazing, not only
watching the people grow, but also watching the world change. These movies
would not look the same. Just keep looking at the phones. And how they're going
to stay connected to each other.
One prime example of this is how in the movie they go around
looking at vinyl records. People don't do that very much anymore and to a
certain extent, they cannot. It's not mainstream anymore. It's like cassette tapes
and VCRs. They're old technology which were preceded by other forms that were
better. Like everything old, they're withering and dying. And someday, they may
not even be remembered.
Another thing an article about the movie pointed out was
that it was an era before Facebook and other online social mediums were a
popular thing. And how difficult it was for people to keep in touch without it.
It's amazing how it becomes and enabler for people to stay connected when in
another place and time, they would have not been able to. Sure, it takes
effort, it doesn't work out by itself. Just because you have Facebook it
doesn't mean you're close or anything. It just means it's possible for you to
do so if you want to. But more often than not it's just easier to just focus on
the people around you, the ones you see every day.
It's a limitation that is slowly being hacked away though.
Some people’s lives are online and when they go out it just helps complementing
their lives. As opposed to the internet being the complement of the real world.
Note: I know how I should talk about the changing dynamics
of the characters too but I’d rather not. That is… relationship stuff, and I
don’t know much about it. The only thing I could say is that it was amazing how
they remembered that night and put so much significance on it over the years
that it might have changed their lives forever. And that is the power of such
connection. But I wouldn’t want to try it myself though. I’d like to keep my
magic. =P
It was funny how these ideas came in cycles. Just before
watching Before Sunrise I was watching High Fidelity. It's a story about a
record store owner and his relationship troubles. But the whole idea of the record
store and its music was amazing! I've never been to those places! They had so
much disks and they could play everything and they know everything about the
music. I've never been in a space like that but I imagine that my parents must
have. They must have been in a record store and touch the vinyl, maybe clean them
and put the needle on the turntable, hear the scratch and then the music.
I don't know why I was watching two movies with record
stores in them one after another. I don't know how it turns out that way, these
Deja vu moments where certain themes or ideas repeats itself and in turn
reaffirms it in my brain. It lights up in my mind and I don't understand why it
would be of any significance whatsoever. I go away just feeling grateful that
miracles happen. This is my version.
I am also fascinated by the word fidelity. It means being
faithful or loyal. But when you put it in terms of high fidelity it means high
quality reproduction of sound. It is two completely different ideas that have no
relation of feeling to one another. I just thought that was kind of
interesting. =)
Personal notation:
When I read back at the stuff I write I can't help but
think... There's so much I EXPOSE here. There's so much of my hearts blood that
I freely spill and swill around hoping to turn it into some rose of some kind.
But it's not stories. It's not the stuff of dreams and spin. It's more of me,
figuring things out more than anything else. I think it is part of the reason
why I don't think I've got this writing thing down yet. It's ok, it's still a
form of writing. But I also like the fact that I'm trying to be honest. It's
something I realize that I really appreciate a lot.
