After Sunset

[Free Capitalist]

I found this movie to be very interesting, although contradictory. It was filmed in an unusual style, with old-school long takes and a generally unique script. Has anyone seen it and would like to discuss it?

[AmbivalentEye]

yes, I saw it and really liked the dialogues. I personally feel like that's me at the age of 32. I don't really have much of an analysis of the movie. I thought it was very simple, since not much really happens except for talking, but I still enjoyed it and the intellectual insights of each character.

[stephen_speicher]

I found this movie to be very interesting, although contradictory. It was filmed in an unusual style, with old-school long takes and a generally unique script. Has anyone seen it and would like to discuss it?

Do you mean After the Sunset, the recent movie directed by Brett Ratner? If so, I enjoyed the film. Not a great movie, but it had an air of intelligence in both plot and character. But, I am curious. In what way did you find it contradictory?

[Free Capitalist]

*SPOILERS*

Just to clarify, I hope we're all speaking about the same movie here, the one about a date between an American guy who, by luck, finds his long-lost love while in Paris; they still remember their youthful passion yet are adults now, settled and content with their own separate lives, thus establishing the conflict of the story.

Yes, that's the movie? Ok

What I liked most about this movie's content was its air of intelligence, as you said, and its honesty - for example, Americans are always trigger-happy to be friendly, even when they don't feel friendly inside, while Europeans are all depressed and sad on some frighteningly deep level.

What I didn't like about the movie's content was the girl's unrelenting arguments of pro-environment, and her endless attacks on American environmental policy, at least in the first half of the movie.

I think the reason why I found the movie to be contradictory is that the it has somehow very accurately captured the psychology of both Europe and America. And for me, being more or less aware of the American mindset, the most eye-opening parts of the movie were ones where I got a new understanding of the European psyche. I really think the European worldview has been captured exceedingly well in the character of the girl. When we meet her, she is mildly happy to meet her long lost love, as a sort of a dear friend. She is very ideologically self confident, in contrast to the guy who appears a rather simple fellow content to smile simply and nod agreeably to every high-filuting idea that comes out of her mouth. And a lot of high-filuting ideas come out of her mouth in the beginning, all about how the nature is in harmony and how America with its cowboy brawn and janitor's brain is stepping all over nature in its simplistic and brutish pursuit of profit and exercise of power. She acknowledges America's incredible power and influence, only to express disbelief that such a great country would be so blind to the dangers of the world, while they, the Old Europe, people left only with memories of the glory days, are the ones who have to take up the banner of natural harmony because no one else will. In short, she is very persuasive and ideologically intimidating, while her American friend smiles sheepishly at her and agrees with everything she says.

Then the movie gets deeper, as we learn more about the characters. From then on it's downhill from her, and uphill for him. The male hero appears quite sophisticated by the end, in touch with his emotions an assertive, playful, and generally very likeable guy. The girl, whose French cuteness I cannot deny , on the other hand, comes closer and closer to breakdown as the movie unravels, and we realize that all her European je n'est sais quai is just a mascarade for a very psychologically traumatized, trapped, depressed and lonely woman, who desperately needs her clean and reliable friend to again become the man she loved long ago, to save her from the invisible web, the trap that is her present life.

And so it is because this movie succeeded so well in capturing the essence of the American and the European psyches, that I find it to be contradictory. Because the European psyche is itself contradictory! She is basically a poster girl for the millions of European twentysomethings who pile out onto the streets of their local cities in huge numbers in order to burn effigies of George Bush, and draw short moustashes on giant placards of his face. So one would think that here, just like in the old Soviet Union, you have a people who are so moved by their value of ideas, and are so confident in the truth of their ideas, that they are willing to gather, organize, and protest, in such huge numbers. But when you scratch the girl's surface a little bit, what do you see? A woman who's terrified of the life she lived, the life that she told herself would be a life of happiness, and yet turned out to be a suffocating trap. So she has to turn to the male hero to save her from herself, essentially, pleading for help from the man who we originally thought was little more than a bumpkin, but turned out, by the end of the movie, to have quite a character and stature.

So not only is the character of the girl self-contradictory in the revealing sort of way, because of how well it captures the soul of Europe, but I am also not sure about what the movie was trying to tell me all along. If the entire point of the movie was to invite the viewer to go on a joy ride of two remarkable character studies, then it succeeded very well. If there was some deeper meaning there, perhaps about who of them was really self-confident and who wasn't, then I think this message was rather jumbled. The male hero never really retorted back at the girl about the ideological crisis of Europe. You can sense he understands it, and you can sense that he and his country actually don't have any such crisis she accused them of, but you also get the feeling like he's not really interested in matching her level of passion for ideas. Is the movie trying to show me the terrifying emptiness and depression of the European mind, underneath the ideological bravado? Then why was she such an intellectual giant in the first part of the movie? I mean she completely dominated the scene with her intellectual and ideological prowess, so there's no way such a woman could actually be just a pitiable wretch deep inside. Unless she's a bipolar psychotic, there cannot be such a huge disconnect between what she says/how she says it, and how she really feels about herself inside. Both portrayals are kind of confusing in what they are trying to tell me.

So, after hating the first part of the movie, and adoring the rest, I left the theater at first feeling, "Wow that was great..." but then scratching my head and thinking, "Okay... hmm, but what does all this actually add up to? I can't really tell..."

[stephen_speicher]

*SPOILERS*

Just to clarify, I hope we're all speaking about the same movie here, the one about a date between an American guy who, by luck, finds his long-lost love while in Paris;

I think you are talking about Before Sunset (not "After Sunset" as you named the thread), an entirely different movie that the one I mentioned, After the Sunset. I have not yet seen your movie, so I stopped reading the "SPOILERS."

[Ed from OC]

I think you are talking about Before Sunset (not "After Sunset" as you named the thread), an entirely different movie that the one I mentioned, After the Sunset. I have not yet seen your movie, so I stopped reading the "SPOILERS."

Before Sunrise was a charming romance. This movie -- the sequel -- is neither charming nor romantic.

[stephen_speicher]

Before Sunrise was a charming romance.  This movie -- the sequel -- is neither charming nor romantic.

I'm disappointed to hear that. Oh well, there are plenty of good movies, both old and new. Right now I'm re-watching The Big Country, which I last saw forty years ago. I had retained a really positive emotional sense about that movie, consisting of independence and adventure, but I had forgotten the details. What a great movie this is, and what a great character Gregory Peck plays -- a real firsthander!

[Free Capitalist]

Ooops, I always get confused by those two titles. Sorry

[stephen_speicher]

Ooops, I always get confused by those two titles. Sorry

Yeah, that "before" and "after" thing is tough. Almost as hard as "up" and "down!"

(Just kidding ...)

I still intend to see the movie you liked, though I must say that I usually agree with Ed about movies, and Ed seems to have disliked this one. I'll wait till it comes to cable.