Before Sun­rise and the ulti­mate intimacy

If a charm­ing stranger asked you to get off the train with them in a for­eign city, would you? Let’s say this hap­pened in the sum­mer when you’re on hol­i­day, and you’re young and full of wild belief that mag­i­cal things hap­pen all the time – so why not?

On 16^th June 2025, known as ​‘Before Sun­rise Day’ among fans, it will be 30 years since a charmed encounter just like this took place on a train rolling into Vien­na. Before Sun­rise is an extreme case of the out-of-time encounter, as Jesse (Ethan Hawke) per­suades Céline (Julie Delpy) to get off the train they’re both on, to walk around togeth­er until morn­ing before part­ing ways. No one knows they’re doing this, and because it’s 1995 there are no text updates to friends from the loos, no loca­tion pins on social media, and not a sin­gle pho­to of them look­ing adorable in the vinyl shop or on the fer­ris wheel. But the most strik­ing thing about watch­ing Before Sun­rise today is how inti­mate it feels to wit­ness these two pay such focused atten­tion to each oth­er, nev­er break­ing the flow to doc­u­ment their aven­ture for their friends or even their future selves.

Star­ring a Gen X coun­ter­cul­ture dream­boat Ethan Hawke in his greasy-haired prime, along­side Julie Deply as an oth­er­world­ly and slight­ly neu­rot­ic Parisian, Richard Linklater’s 1995 film has long since become a cult clas­sic, even though it’s osten­si­bly a film in which noth­ing real­ly hap­pens. Two 20-some­things walk around Vien­na at night, just talk­ing. Maybe that’s the fan­ta­sy – to sim­ply have someone’s undi­vid­ed atten­tion. Even before mobile phones became so ubiq­ui­tous that Erykah Badu ser­e­nad­ed her lover with the words ​“I can make you put your phone down”, hav­ing someone’s eyes on you like this would be pret­ty incred­i­ble. When­ev­er I re-watch this film, I’m so struck by the van­ish­ing beau­ty of the unin­ter­rupt­ed moment that it makes me want to hurl my phone – and every­one else’s too – into the ocean.

I first saw Before Sun­rise in the cin­e­ma as a young teenag­er, before I’d had so much as a first kiss. It was the first time I’d seen a girl and a boy talk like that – it was a for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence, to put it mild­ly. I didn’t yet have strong ideas of what I want­ed my future to be, but this film made me feel like life would be an adven­ture, full of excep­tion­al peo­ple and enchant­i­ng moments, wait­ing to be expe­ri­enced on beau­ti­ful sum­mer evenings in Euro­pean cities. My VHS copy got warped with repeat plays. I only watch the film once a year now, but each time I’m pleased to find that not only does it hold up, but there’s a gen­uine sin­cer­i­ty that nev­er fails to brush away my cyn­i­cism. Even now, the hottest part is all that intense talking.

But is that just because Jesse and Céline know they only have one night? So great was their youth­ful belief in the gen­eros­i­ty of the uni­verse, sure to send them end­less amaz­ing dates in the future, that they decid­ed not to exchange num­bers – they don’t want to spoil their rela­tion­ship by let­ting it fiz­zle out. Usu­al­ly the obsta­cle in the ​“missed con­nec­tions” film genre is exter­nal – at least one par­ty is engaged or mar­ried (Lost in Trans­la­tion, Sleep­less in Seat­tle, Casablan­ca), there’s some med­ical issue like a coma or mem­o­ry loss (Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind, For­ev­er Young), or time trav­el throws a span­ner in the works (The Lake House, The Time Trav­el­er’s Wife). The deci­sion to not exchange num­bers is hard to watch for any­one who’s been alive in the era of Tin­der, or indeed past age 22. But as a cin­e­mat­ic tool it real­ly cranks up the emo­tion­al inten­si­ty, and as the pre-dawn light fills the screen you can prac­ti­cal­ly feel the agony of the char­ac­ters, not want­i­ng the encounter to end. They’re des­per­ate­ly savour­ing every detail.
 

Before Sun­rise spawned two sequels, start­ing with Before Sun­set which is set in Paris nine years lat­er – that’s how long it takes Jesse and Céline to find each oth­er again. (While the fact that we can now dig up the life sto­ry of a Hinge match in less than ten min­utes with just a first name and a pro­fes­sion is pret­ty inva­sive, it would admit­ted­ly have been use­ful here.) Com­plet­ing the tril­o­gy is Before Mid­night, set in Greece a fur­ther nine years lat­er, which is the mar­ried-with-kids chap­ter where the fairy­tale comes back down to earth some­what. But as inter­est­ing as it is to watch Jesse and Céline grow and change togeth­er, noth­ing beats the ten­der opti­mism of Before Sun­rise. That’s before they’ve realised, as Céline observes in Sun­set, that ​“when you’re young, you just believe there’ll be many peo­ple you’ll con­nect with. Lat­er in life, you realise it only hap­pens a few times.”

There’s a moment in Before Sun­rise where Jesse tells Céline he’s going to take her pic­ture, but he doesn’t have a cam­era so he just stops and looks at her, com­mit­ting her to mem­o­ry. ​“I remem­ber that night bet­ter than I remem­ber entire years,” he says in Sun­set, and we believe him – he paid such close attention.

The mes­sage of Before Sun­rise is not to man­u­fac­ture scarci­ty, nor should you nec­es­sar­i­ly get off the train in a ran­dom city with the next stranger who asks (but if you do, def­i­nite­ly shoot off a quick text to alert some­one). Instead, the real thrill of Before Sun­rise, and the source of its age­less appeal, is how insane­ly hot it is when some­one gives you their full atten­tion, resist­ing the urge to text and Google and take pho­tos. It’s a reminder to leave my phone in my bag and just focus on the per­son I’m with – even if I’m going to see them again tomor­row – because doing so real­ly changes the atmos­phere, leav­ing space for new con­nec­tions to form.

I once spent a week in Berlin with some­one who I’d known for a few short months, after meet­ing on a dat­ing app. We took a chance on a full week’s hol­i­day, walk­ing around in the light Euro­pean sum­mer nights as it slow­ly dawned on us that this thing was some­thing else – luck­i­ly, we were both old enough to realise. Peo­ple knew where we were, but we were far from home and focused only on each oth­er. My mem­o­ries are a potent mix of sun­shine and graf­fi­ti and sweat, inter­rupt­ed by an ago­nis­ing A&E vis­it after I got a UTI from all the fun (worth it). It’s now nine years lat­er and we live togeth­er, and a lot has hap­pened since then. But I remem­ber that week bet­ter than I remem­ber entire years.