Hello and welcome to Lights Camera Aggro, the podcast with two friends, one film and very little agreement. I'm Nikki, and I too feel this pressure to be a strong and independent icon of womanhood.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Phil. Have you ever truly been in love? This week it's Nikki's turn to share a movie she loves, and today she's brought the 1995 classic before sunrise.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that will come soon enough, but first, how's your week been?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's a bit of an odd week, really. I'm wearing a cap at the moment. You are? Never have I seen you in a cap before. Because of my haircut. Okay. It's gone a bit too short. I go to the same barber all the time. Now obviously I'm a hairdresser. Yeah. So I am watching in the mirror, and I did notice he was going a little bit high with the clippers, and then all of a sudden the razor, now we're talking like the razor you'd use on your face came out onto the back of my head, and I was like, what's going on here? So I don't know if he's messed my hairline up a little bit on his skin.
SPEAKER_01You've got a skin face.
SPEAKER_02He's giving me a full-on skin face.
SPEAKER_01It's not about that. That's all right. It's on trend.
SPEAKER_02It's on trend, but it's not what I normally have. So yeah, so just while it's this short, just wear a little bit of a calf for comfortableness.
SPEAKER_01It is funny. You look like, I don't know, like you're trying to be like a cool teenager.
SPEAKER_02Mature teenager of 51. And and then Mervidex. Well, this is not exciting for many people, but the finally the Pet Check Boys Live album came out today, which I've been waiting for since August last year. Kept getting delayed and delayed. What is it live? What what is what is the live? And it's the greatest hits, but it got delayed because of they've recently announced because of the song Go West. There was a dispute over it. So yeah, how's your week been?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's it's been good. So here's my issue at the moment. It's not an issue, it's an absolute delight. I've become obsessed with heated rivalry. Do you know heated rivalry?
SPEAKER_02I've never heard of heated rivalry now.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. So here's the thing: so many people are obsessed with this TV show, and they are lots of them are gay men and lots of them are women.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, there's you straight on it then.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. It's right in my wheelhouse. But obviously, it's not a massive thing in your life because you've never heard of it, but it seems to have taken over my entire social media algorithm, and it's just it dropped in the UK on the 10th of January. It's six episodes, it's on Sky, and I think on now, and it was in America in the Thanksgiving weekend. So it's all just in the last few months. It's a queer love story set in the ice hockey world of North America, so it's kind of doing it. Oh, I have heard about this.
SPEAKER_02I have heard about it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. So I've become obsessed with it because I am a perimenopausal 47-year-old woman who is obsessed with anything that makes me feel. It really makes me feel. It is beautiful, it's beautifully short. Everyone says it's just about sex. It is not about sex, it is, but it's not. It's a beautiful, tender, romantic love story between these very sweet but also slightly damaged but not completely damaged, but still a little bit people with baggage guys who are dealing with all sorts who get together in secret, closeted because they're professional sports people in a very blokey, toxic thing. And as we saw recently, I don't know if you saw the US men's hockey team.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's quite toxic. One thing I will say, the worst thing I seen about the hockey stuff, obviously seen the video where you know Mr. Slump was going, we'll bring the the the women as well or something. Ho ho ho, but then posted an AI video of himself, do being a hockey player though. Oh, so gross.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it was just oh he no, what he should not be allowed to make AI videos, nobody should, because they're just rubbish. But he should absolutely not be allowed to be anywhere near anything that makes content. He shouldn't be allowed to be he just fills the the uh channels with AI slot, it's horrible. Anyway, the point is I've become obsessed with this TV show, it's beautiful, I love the writing, I love the direction of it, I love the books, I've read all the books, all of this, all in the last couple of months, three months. But what uh that has meant is I've got my arse into gear and booked a holiday this year, which was already going to be happening probably anyway, but I've booked a holiday to Canada, which is where a lot of it is set. So in September I'm gonna be in Canada, and it isn't because it's not because of ice cream.
SPEAKER_02Are you going to watch ice hockey while you're over there?
SPEAKER_01Not at this point because I don't know when the fixtures are, but I'm in Montreal for five days at the end of September, and apparently the NHL will announce their fixtures in June or July, and the season's gonna start at the end of September. It may correspond. If it does, I might look into it. But the point is, it's not about that, it's more just about the fact this show is lovely and is set a lot of it in Montreal and in Canada in general, some of it's in the US, and it's just made me want to go to Canada. And isn't that isn't that mad? A TV show that makes you want to book, and it isn't that's not a cheap, quick holiday. That's not like an easy jet weekend to Paris. That's a big thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's made me do a big thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the power of television, you know. That's a very, very nicky thing to do, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00To go to the location of a place, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The other the other the other thing I want to mention, like and we just we just touched upon this um before we started recording. We're both excited for the new screen movie. Yes, very yeah, which will have been out for a while and I was just about to say this episode will come out weeks after it's come out, but I'm presuming both of us are going to do shorts on it. So that's quite interesting to see both our different interpretations of the movie. I think we're both fans of Scream Show.
SPEAKER_01I think that clouds it a bit for me because it's one of them where they could do anything, and as long as they've got some of the kind of the characters, like Sydney, I know she's back in this one, and then as long as they do a little bit of like the little music, the little sort of motifs that come in over all of the films have the same little kind of musical signifiers, and if they mention Woodsboro, you know we mentioned I'll just be obsessed, I'll just love it. But is this it's hard for me to be critical on these?
SPEAKER_02And now when we say it's hard to be critical, is the is the gonna get to a point where it's gonna get franchise fatigue?
SPEAKER_01Because it hasn't happened so far. No, no, not so far.
SPEAKER_02They've been quite good so far, but will it get to that point?
SPEAKER_01Potentially.
SPEAKER_02There's already talk of an eighth now.
SPEAKER_01I think they are they're pretty good. I heard Nev Campbell be interviewed. I listened to a podcast about this the other day. It's called Hello Sydney, and it's it's by it's by Anna Boggett Skyer and Mike Munson, I think his name is, and they're both film critics, and they're obsessed with a horror film in general, I think. So they were doing a sort of they did a good like hour and a half, I think, on what they think will be in this film, even though they don't know because they're not seeing it. So there's lots of speculation, but uh, there was an interview with Nev Campbell, and I really liked how she's like, Yeah, I wanted this one to be a bit more revert to sort of the original. We've got Kev Kevin Williamson's back writing. Obviously, Wes Craven had died, but they wanted it to be more in the style of Wes's stuff, and she was really kind of she's like, and it's got a bit gory in recent times, they'll be kind of bringing it down, dialing it down. There will be some creative kills, but you know, it'll sort of be more dialed down for the narrative and the plot. And I'm like, yeah, go on, that sounds good.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I mean we'll get onto the film, we're actually supposed to be talking about it in a little bit, but one one of my only criticisms of the I think is the last two recent films, um they were over the top gorian places, and Scream was never that, you know.
SPEAKER_01Scream was the who'd done it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think there was bits that you know, obviously you've seen people getting killed and stabbed, but this went over the top where blood was splattering everywhere, and it wasn't it was never that, unless unless I'm misremembering.
SPEAKER_01I think I I definitely think uh that certainly the last one or uh and I watched uh Scream 5, which is actually called Scream again. I watched that last night, so I can and I'm gonna watch Scream Six again before going to the cinema for the new one. I think that if they had been the first films, I would never have got into the franchise because they are really gory. I love them because they are part of a franchise that I love and have loved since '96. I think the original came out. It's thirty, yeah, 30. Oh my god, it's 30 years. 96? Is it a year since 96? Oh my goodness, okay. Oh so any, that's just that's blowing my mind.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna be Scream 10, they're going after um Sydney's grandkids.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, this next one apparently has Sydney's daughter, doesn't it? So it's gonna be two j anyway. Yeah, we'll we'll talk more about that on our shorts, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02So, before we start, remember this is going to be full of spoilers, and if you haven't seen before sunrise, now's the time to pause the pod and come back when you're done. We'll be waiting. So, why did you choose before sunrise?
SPEAKER_01Oh, before sunrise, my very heart. Okay. If any time between 1997 and I think 2023, you'd have asked me what is your all-time favourite film ever? I would have said before sunrise. No question. I first saw it in '97. And in 2023, another film came out that I decided to piped it to the post just, but it's still up there, it's still one of my all-time favourite films. Can I guess what that film is?
SPEAKER_02Is it the one with the two men in Italy? Is it Italy?
SPEAKER_01Um not call me by your name. That's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, it's I know you've gushed about that.
SPEAKER_01It I have, but that's now tainted. Yeah, obviously, obviously. Um All of Us Strangers. Right. Oh, yeah. Another one with two men. But this was always up there, and I have very, very clear memories of watching it. I was 19, I was in my student house, it was a Friday night, all my flatmates had gone out because they had social life and they had money and they were able to just go and party. I had no money and I had a boyfriend at home, which was shit at uni. So it was Friday night, I was sitting in, and it was February, and Channel 4 were doing like a series of love films because of the run-up to Valentine's Day, and there'd been a few others in the in the week, and I just thought, Oh sod it, I'll just watch whatever film they put on tonight. It's before sunrise, I've never heard of it. Fine, I'll just watch it because there's nothing else to do. And the second is a bit harsh. The minute it started from the opening scenes with the music and the rail tracks and the train, it was like I was I just felt it was tunnel vision, I was just sucked in. I I lost uh awareness of my surroundings, I just was utterly absorbed by this film. It felt incredibly relatable, incredibly realistic. I felt like I was going on this journey, on this train, on this walk around the city, and I just fell in love with the film. And I think it's fair to say I was the exact right age you need to be when you watch it. I was 19. It's about young people, it's about them meeting, connecting, and having the whole of their life and their all of their dreams and all of their aspirations still in place, and I was at that point then. And it's interesting watching it now as an older person because that's different, but oh my god, I just it just woke something up in me that was like this is your life. You have these possibilities, you could get on a train and chat to a stranger, you could travel around, you could have all these dreams and desires and hopes, you could share them with another person, and it would all be absolutely normal because real life hasn't really kicked in yet, and it just felt like just the most momentous thing when I watch this film, and I realised that sounds ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02No, no, I know this is your Star Wars as Star Wars is to me. I can't see that sounds they're very different films, yeah. Obviously, yin yin and yang, you know. Um, but I know this, like you know, knowing you're over the years, this this is what your equivalent to my Star Wars is. You know, you've always cherished this movie, praised it, spoke about it, forced me to watch it. Um I've actually seen it three times now.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I know I meant I do remember telling you years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you had to watch it. So I watched it. Then I watched it to for the podcast and then I watched it again last night to refresh. Cool. So so yeah, I've seen it three times now. And you know, that's the first time I watched it, it it didn't say much to me, I will say that. But I've rewatched it since obviously for the podcast, so we'll touch upon that later on.
SPEAKER_01Can I also just ask? I do think my whole thesis is you have uh i it pays to be younger to watch this. Can I ask how old you were ish when you watched it for the first time? Because I I can't remember when I told you to do this.
SPEAKER_02How long have we known each other? Since 2011. 2011, so 15 years. So maybe 14 years ago. Oh good.
SPEAKER_00That didn't take too long to tell you. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, so probably about 14 years ago. So you're mid-30s.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's interesting. But it's just it's I just find it fascinating how it can hit you at different points in your life. So, okay, well, we'll do a plot breakdown, but honestly, this is really simple plot.
SPEAKER_02It's the most simple plot in the world. Struggling to write breakdowns. I have got notes, obviously. Obviously.
SPEAKER_01Um, but yeah, it's it's it's two people meet on a train, get on well, and have a dialogue conversation for the rest of the film while they walk around a city. That is literally it. Um, and it that does play into a lot of stuff that I love about storytelling. I love it when it, you know, a simple, sort of pared-down plot. I love two people talking. I I love plays, so this feels like this could be a play. Um, two people in one scene or one set, you know, different backdrops dropping down at the back of the stage, but ultimately it's just conversation. I mean, it's kind of when Harry met Sally-ish.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01In the sense that it's two people and we just care about them for the whole film. But you know, obviously that's a different beast.
SPEAKER_02Before we start, okay, I did a bit of research. Oh, hello.
SPEAKER_01That's that's a new one.
SPEAKER_02Right. The director, yes, it's the same director of School of Rock.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's Richard Linkley.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, didn't I did not know that. So I found that out. And also, I looked on Rotten Tomatoes. Okay. It's got a hundred percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
SPEAKER_01No, I never know which way around it's supposed to be on Rotten Tomatoes. Is that good or bad? Good. Oh, brilliant. Okay, so the bigger number is the best. Yeah, yeah. 100% rating. Yeah, I don't I don't know how you can't like this film. Uh it might not speak to your very soul, yeah, but it's there's nothing ineff it's it's inoffensive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but if it doesn't speak to your soul, you're not gonna like it. It it's worth it's worth I'll put it down as a film where if you like the subject matter, you're very interested in it. If you don't like the subject matter, it's boring.
SPEAKER_01But the subject matter is human nature and humanity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but some but this is where it speaks to you personally. No, no, hang on a second. This is where it speaks to you personally so that you get this really well. Somebody who's going to escape life to the cinema, they won't enjoy it because that that is just it's just it is a perfect encapsulation of a bit of a day of somebody's life or even it it's well, it's so much more than that, but anyway, we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we start off, and like I said, uh there are train tracks, there is it's uh Dido and Aeneas music. It's like I got this soundtrack, this music, it's like largely classical. I got absolutely haunted by this uh soundtrack when I watched it in '97. I started going into every like uh record shop and every um CDs did exist then. So C D shop. I went in anything.
SPEAKER_02How how different is it now? Because now you just go on your phone and download it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, I was searching for it, I was searching for this music, I was looking for under beef or before sunrise, it didn't exist, and then I was looking for like different composers because I wanted this music. It's took me years to be able to end up with the CD because it just and I needed the internet to find it because I just yeah, ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02I'm just saying you couldn't just say it's there to say.
SPEAKER_01I know it's ridiculous, but I spent so long in the weeks, months, probably years after this, looking for the music. But we hear that we hear this sort of classical music start, it kind of chugs in in line with the train, and we become um we're almost like passengers on this train, um, this train carriage. The views out the window are scenic Austria. We don't exactly know that at the time, but it looks like that.
SPEAKER_02So one one one thing so I'll pick up on this. I thought the train, the train track shots weren't very good, and I thought the scenes out of the window weren't very good, right? I I'm just saying that's no, no, no. Just listen to me.
SPEAKER_01100% Rotten Tomatoes, have a word with yourself.
SPEAKER_02Just listen to listen to what I'm about to say, right? I I just thought, yeah, it's it just looked a bit tacky. As the film got further on, the views there were were amazing.
SPEAKER_01I just thought You mean the city in the city of Village?
SPEAKER_02But even like some of the shots later on in the train or when they're looking around and stuff, it looks so much better. Just those first couple of shots. I was a bit like, oh, that looks that's poor.
SPEAKER_01I don't think it's poor. What what is also randomly bizarre is that this in '97, when I watched this, when I watched this at uni, the summer before I'd been on my like first holiday with adults, which was basically been my boyfriend, and we went to Austria, which is bizarre because it's not really like you know, Falaraki or the places that you go, is it? But we'd gone to Salzburg because of the sound of music, obviously, that'd be my first place I ever wanted to go if I ever got to choose where I went on holiday. Um, but I had been to scenic rural Austria.
SPEAKER_02We're just just about you going to Canada for hockey and now you're like you're so predictable. You are so predictable.
SPEAKER_01If I like a TV show or film, I will go to the place it's filmed. Um yeah, so but the scenery, this those scenes, those little sort of chalet huts in the sort of lakeside mountains felt very familiar because that's exactly what I'd stayed in. I'd stayed in there. Anyway, I that that didn't bother me, but let's move on. Um, we're in the carriage and it's you know, just chugging along, and then this German couple start having a row, and it's pure banter. It's so funny. There are no subtitles.
SPEAKER_02No, I that and that that was um a bit dishevelling at first seeing that. A bit dishevelling, yes. What but in terms of how it worked, I thought it was really good plot device on how they got Jesse and her together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Should we give her a name? Put on them. Do you want to say it? No, you can say it. Selene.
SPEAKER_02Celine.
SPEAKER_01Well done for remembering. Um yeah, no, I thought it was a nice little thing of arguments to clearly pissed off married couple with each other who are middle age middle aged, they're probably about 40, and they just start arguing, and she like smacks his newspapers. I haven't actually read a translation of what this is, and he's basically saying something like, Oh, in the I'm reading an article about women drink too much or something, and he's like, Like you, and she's like, I wouldn't drink if it wasn't for you, and all this stuff. It's just a stupid argument. But we don't need to know the translation, although I will link it in the show notes.
SPEAKER_02The funny thing is, like, with this, they I know I know I'm jumping a a couple of minutes ahead, they leave the the restaurant, yeah, carriage. They come back, they look very disheveled, and I was like, have they just they looked more dishevelled than when when they went out, and I was thinking he took the German couple? The German couple. Oh, sorry, so you went Celina and Jesse. No, not Selena Jesse. Um they looked very dishevelled. Uh coming back, and I was like, have they just had it off in the toilets? Is it like one of those where they have a big argument and then they go, let's go and make passionate love and I didn't get that. We'll check it out next time because it looks like they've even had a fight. They need to have a fight, they've just been love in the toilets.
SPEAKER_01Sweet, sweet love. Sweet, sweet love. Um, I don't know. I didn't get that.
SPEAKER_02I'm all about the detail.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, we don't need to worry about this couple, we've already spent far too long. But they're the reason that Celine moves her bag and takes a seat opposite this guy. Good plot, good plot device for that. It's a nice way to set it up, and so then and there's also a kind of a thing that they can then start to talk about. Like, he goes, Oh, do you know what they're talking about? And she sort of says, No, I don't speak German or my German's not very good.
SPEAKER_02Because I I know I'd seen it before, but it was a long time ago since I'd last seen it. And the train's actually moving. I was like, what what are they gonna do to get them to sit together? Because if they're already sat together, why wouldn't they be talking anyway?
SPEAKER_01And it's a long journey. Yeah, he's coming from Budapest, he's just travelling around the euro.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so I thought it was a good little device to get her to move. It's the trigger, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um, but so they start to chat and it's really nice, it's really easy. He sort of makes a bit of conversation, they both share what books they're reading, they talk about she she quotes an article about you know, she's read that as people get older, men can't hear high sounds and women can't hear lower sounds, so couples kind of balance each other out. Yeah, and it's just this natural flow. Um, they decide to move to the restaurant car because the couple come back, the arguing couple, so they just get out of the way. They click so the couple have obviously fucked in a toilet. Um, they go and sit down and they have something to eat because we then join them where their plates are empty. So they time has passed and they've carried on this very easy conversation. But it covers all sorts, it covers like you know, aspirations that their parents had for them, or it covers Jesse talks about um seeing his dead grandma's ghost when he was three, and it's all this beautiful kind of it's the type of stuff you would probably share with a stranger on a train. Not the stuff you'd tell people in your life, because it's all too weird and too vulnerable almost. But when you sort of it it's just it's that kind of idea of It's like a bubble of safety because you're just strangers, it doesn't matter. But it's all very easy. And quite quickly, the train pulls into Vienna. Jesse's already explained that he's been travelling around uh for the last few weeks uh with a URL pass and uh his flight back to the US is uh tomorrow morning out of Vienna, so that's where he's headed. And Celine is on her way to Paris because she's uh studying at the Sorbonne.
SPEAKER_02Is this about 20 minutes into the film?
SPEAKER_01I think I can probably is.
SPEAKER_02And the film's short length, it's only 141 minutes long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um but it goes quite it's very quick. It kicks by, you know, it doesn't sort of drag. So the train pulls into Vienna, and this is where they need to say goodbye, and he gets his bags, and it's obviously parked up for a little bit because people are sort of chopping and changing. And he comes up to her and goes, Right, I've had an idea. And the whole idea is you need to come off the train now with me, we'll walk around the city. And he does say, I've got no money for a hotel, so we're just I was just gonna walk around all night. Let's do that together. So the whole premise of this film is that this scene works because you have to believe that she would get off the train with this guy who an hour or two before was a total stranger. And I do believe she would, I do believe at this point the way it's been set up, the ease of conversation, the natural connection that has sort of been evident. I do believe, yeah. And he does the kind of funny thing like, let's fast forward to the future where you're married and you're not as happy as you were, and you start thinking back to those guys that you could have hooked up with, and he's like, I'm one of those guys, and you'll work out that I'm just as boring as your husband, so you might as well stay with your husband, and it's kind of a jokey funny thing, and so she kind of goes, Right, yeah, okay. And I totally believe that would happen.
SPEAKER_02Now, when I watch when I watched this last night, um, I was sitting there thinking, guys, if Nikki was on a train with someone they talked to her and they said for two hours, would you get off the train with me and have a conversation? I thought Nikki'd just have a keys in her hands ready to punch out. That's the media thing that I thought watching this. This was unjaded. Honestly, this this this was the thing, and like you say, I'm not tarnishing the film, but real life, how would that happen and stuff? But it did, it just made me think if Mickey was on the train, there'd be no way she'd go, Yeah, okay, let's go.
SPEAKER_01I refer you back to the fact that I watched this when I was 19 with the whole of my life ahead of me, without being jaded, without being it's not about being like unsafe, because I think that your safety mechanism is still there. But she I think at that at a younger age, when I still felt like this is one of many possibilities I will have in my life as I get older. Um, I think I would have got off the train with definitely with Ethan Hawke, probably with Jesse.
SPEAKER_02I think this is the best Ethan Hawke has looked as well, by the way.
SPEAKER_01This man who I've measured every man who I've ever met against in my life, because he is the epitome of my ideal man that has been cemented in my head since 19.
SPEAKER_02Good hair is a good thing. While on the subject of poor haircut failure, he's got good hair in his face.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he does look good. But he is, um, he would definitely have convinced me to get off the trade then, as would other people maybe, if I'd felt that connection. This did nearly happen to me once. Okay, this is my little story. Is this gonna be the longest podcast you've ever known? Oh, I hope so, because it's the best film, right? So this didn't happen to me. I did not get off a train with a stranger, but I once got a train when I was 17 from Birmingham to Reading, and I was meeting people in Reading, and I it was the olden days, so it literally took like three hours to get that journey now, it's probably about 45 minutes, I don't know, but it was three hours, and I didn't have a ticket, so I was sitting between carriages on my rucksack, and a few other people were as well. But there was another guy sitting on his rucksack between this in the same place opposite us, and we basically just started chatting, and he was he was he was 19, I think, or 20. And he was going to Reading because his m- he was from Reading and his mum see, I remember this, isn't this mad?
SPEAKER_02His mum quite as attractive, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01He wasn't and I can't remember what he looks like, but I remember his name because he showed me his passport. Um he uh he was going to say goodbye to his mum in Reading because he was offgoing travelling uh around Europe, so that was his plan, and I was going to meet people and we just got chatting. I remember him saying, Right, we've got three hours, let's do politics, religion, art, uh, music. Let's just cover all the big topics.
SPEAKER_02I think he'd just seen this film before, hadn't he?
SPEAKER_01No, this I don't think this film existed then. This is the point. But he was like, let's just cover all the big topics. I was like, Yes, let's. And we just quit we just had this really lovely conversation, it flowed dead easily. We talked about our thoughts about all these things. He went to the got and got us a beer from the shop on the train, and then the three hours passed really quickly, and then we just said goodbye, and then that was it. And now I literally can't remember what he looked like, but I do remember his name because it's the same name as a character in the play The Crucible, which I knew well at the time. So I remember it because he showed me his passport as well because I thought he was joking because he'd made up a name from the play, which he hadn't, and it's like I mean that guy would now be like 50, 50, 51, maybe alive, maybe dead. I don't know what he looked like, but it was a really good conversation, and so this shit happens, this shit happens.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so we'll touch upon this at the end of the movie when the end happens. Okay, because we've we've said so much crap about other stuff. Should we move on? We need to get on the plot of the film.
SPEAKER_01Okay, they get off the train in Vienna, and it's only then that they actually introduce themselves. That's they swap the swap names once they've both made that commitment to spend.
SPEAKER_02The names are Jesse and Selena. Jesse as well. Just so you know. So now we get Oh no, it's actually James. Yeah, but it's but everyone calls him Jesse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, you seem to remember the man and not the woman. I think you remember misogynists. Um so yeah, they they're they're now in Vienna, and we get to explore Vienna with them. And there's an early scene where they're sort of a bit awkward, wondering what they're gonna do. And they meet these two guys on the bridge who are actors, or I'm drama actors. So I love these guys.
SPEAKER_02They are so poor at acting.
SPEAKER_01Oh, they're so it's just so realistic. No, it's not, it's not. You're trying to you you're wanting this to be a Marvel film, and it's not, it's a very naturalistic.
SPEAKER_02I'll say this now, right? The movie works except for when other people are brought into it. I just thought that they were so poor at acting, the two actors that brought in. It was like they just bumped into two people on the street and said, Can you read these actions?
SPEAKER_01I don't know exactly why it works. No, but they're just like two guys you meet on the street.
SPEAKER_02Because uh Jesse and Celine, they're really, really good actors, and it you know, this film falls apart if they aren't good at what they're doing. And when other people are brought into their environments, they're not as good as them acting, it just doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01I think it works all the more because it feels very real. It feels like these are two guys they just bumped into on the street who are like, Oh yeah, come to a play. Here's a play. I'm a cow. Bring me the cow, yeah. I am the cow, bring me the uh horns of Wilmington's cow. I have Googled that, I think it is a real play. So we just see a series of them sort of moving around the city in various places with various backdrops, getting to know each other now because it's all a bit real now, it's not like on the train where it's this like little safe bubble. Um, so they're on a tram, Jesse suggests a QA, things like describe your first sexual feelings, have you ever been in love? What pisses you off? These kind of conversations, and we see their discovery of each other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it was funny, like because he he he says to her, We'll ask each other questions, you've got to be truthful. And the first thing he asks is about sex, yeah, I was like, oh, that's that's a bit uh full on, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01But we see them just starting to kind of get to know each other, these sort of icebreaker style things, and then they go to a record shop. Um, I miss record shops. I used to just love flicking through, you know, never bought anything.
SPEAKER_02This this is the thing to wonder why they've gone. I'm gonna go off on a tangent for once now. Okay, you know, since this digital age of being able to download music and things, this we've we've we've got we've lost something that looking forward to an album coming out, and you're having to travel to the record shop, and then you get the bus back or the train back, and then you sit and read the the notes in the sleeve about the songs or or the lyrics and stuff. You don't get that now because it's like you know, Harry Styles have got, oh, I've got an album coming out on a week, and then a week later you just download the album, and that's it. You don't have anything physical to look at, yeah, feel or read. It's just a bunch of songs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know that so there are some record shops that still exist, but they are very few and far between compared to how it was when that was the only place you got your music. And I do miss and it's the same with bookshops, I mean, there are still bookshops. There's something lovely about the looking and spending the time in that with other people who are also looking. The record shop, though, they're looking at stuff, and they there's this scene where they there's a listening booth. I think what's really clever is that even in 90 this came out in 95, this was like an old thing to have. This wasn't like a cutting-edge modern thing, a listening booth. Or it might be in Vienna, but this is the point, they're in a place that is not home to either of them, they're in a strange place for both of them. So even though they're different because they're from different countries and different continents and they have different ideas and they're different people, um, there's a sense of they're both in this strange land together. And I like that because it makes us as viewers who are not Austrian feel like we're, you know, we're also experiencing this new place with these new kind of how you know how are things gonna be here? How are we gonna respond to each other here? What are we like here? And they go to this listening booth, and it is possibly one of my favourite scenes of all cinema ever. It's so sexually charged and it's so beautiful, and all it is is they're they're in a really small cramped space, as are we, the camera, as are we in there with them. We're sort of looking up in a sort of squashed little tiny room, and they're playing this record, and both actors when one will looks at the other, the other looks away, when the other looks at the other, the other looks away, and it's this real sort of pent up they both are attracted to each other, we know this. She wouldn't have got off the train with them if she wasn't, presumably, but it's just a beautifully filmed, directed, acted little I don't know, one-minute scene.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the the thing with scenes like this, if the shots work in it perfectly, the the looks work perfectly, because it could look it can go so wrong a scene like this, because you like you say, it's just a moment, it's just a quick moment of it. Something here. And like the what the one thing, and I'll I'll massively praise this film for the chemistry between the two leads is phenomenal. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It is, it's properly and the thing as well, and this is the same, as you know, I'm sure there are three films in this series, or at this point, this was the only one. This was all we had. So they wrote this with uh Richard Link later. Kim Chrisan is also credited, she's a co-writer, but um Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy aren't credited on on this one, but they are on the subsequent two. But it's all written, none of it is improvised. It gives the impression of there being an element of oh, they could have just been making it up as they go along. It's so naturalistic. So every little interruption, every little when they talk over each other and then stop and then it's all written. And I just think it's so clever, that's clever in itself. Because it's it doesn't seem formal or rehearsed, or you know, this was written out by other people, and now we are acting. It seems so it flows so easily.
SPEAKER_02Well, it does flow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We go to a graveyard. Again, these are places that when I eventually go to Vienna, I want to see these places because I assume the graveyard isn't going to be like redeveloped or anything. Um, it's a place where Celine visited when she was 13 with her parents, she mentions that she'd been there before, and she finds this grave that she remembers um of a girl who was also 13 when she died. And Celine has this little sort of second of going, Oh yeah, so I suppose she's still 13 and I'm I'm not. And that now has a whole gut punch for meaning because, like, when I watch this film, it is like being plugged back into my 19-year-old feelings, it is like being plugged back into the person I was in 1997, and now I'm not. It is not 1997, I'm not 19, and it does feel that feels like a really meta scene now as we watch this film. This film is 31 years old this year, which I don't think it seems it. There are definitely things they mention that are clearly not the the play the the way it is anymore.
SPEAKER_02But the way they dress, the way the the way they look could be exactly the same.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see that outfit now. If a guy was wearing that, he's wearing a leather jacket, a t-shirt, jeans, and Converse. That is absolutely tick, tick, tick, tick, all of my favourite things.
SPEAKER_02But that's been tick tick tick since the 60s.
SPEAKER_01Well that's the point. It could be any time, it doesn't even have to be like since this film. Yeah, I mean, the only She's wearing a maxi dress over a t-shirt. It's like so classic.
SPEAKER_02The only the only thing for me that aged the film was the quality of the actual film itself. Oh, you need to get over that because that just still I'm all about the technical.
SPEAKER_01But you can't take that's that's you can't change that. That's I think in terms of the choices that were made at the time of being filmed, this has stood up.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, I I think everything. The subject points in the film are pretty spot on still to this point. The way they're dressed, pretty spot on. The obviously the city's not changed radically and stuff.
SPEAKER_01How do we how do you know?
unknownWho the hell knows?
SPEAKER_02Because they're not going to suddenly put skyscrapers where all these beautiful buildings are. Well, let's hope not. We will find out when we're meant to go. Yeah, uh, grave. Um but you know, this could have been shot yesterday and released today. I really see what my point is.
SPEAKER_01Last year it was the 30th anniversary, which blew my mind, and I went to see it on the big screen for the first time because I'd only ever seen it on the like streaming and on video. Um and I went to see it, and it was just I it really struck me. This has not aged a day, you know. The the look of it, the colours, the the clothes, the clothes, particularly, the music, even because it's called classical music and a few like random things that are sort of timeless. I think it's timeless. Anyway, yeah, I just think it's such a great film. We go to the Pirata, the big Ferris wheel, and it's dust, there's a fairground underneath. They go into one of those little pods, it's a bit like the Millennium. Wait, is it called the Millennium Wheel? No, it's a bit like the London Eye, the London Eye, and they're in a pod on their own, it seems. Uh, and this is where, and it's like no massive fanfare, and it's still fairly early into the film. They kiss. And I like that they did this early doors. We're not building up to a kiss at the end.
SPEAKER_02Is this the point that I did is this where he goes, I need to tell you something secret?
SPEAKER_01That no, he does that later on. He've already kissed by that. Right. This was the first kiss in the Ferris Wheel, and it's just lovely, you know. It's he sort of says, Oh, we've got the sunset and we're high up, and and you know, it's all he's sort of setting the scenes, he's trying to make a move and it's fine. She goes for it. I do have a thing about I really like scenes in stories that are set high up. And the reason I know this is because I write them in my own books. In one of my books, I had three characters talking at the top of a like a kind of a cliff top. It was like a, you know, you got up on a little train and you kind of made it was like a little picnic area, but they were there at dusk eating chips, talking about some big changes. In another of my books, I had like the young girl protagonist walking along with her family, the Welsh coastal path, and then they go on ahead and she sits and as I think, because she's got some stuff going on. I feel like being at height forces you to, I don't know, just get away from all of the stress of the real world and get you to think clearly.
SPEAKER_02It's quite funny because of being on the London Eye.
SPEAKER_01Did you make any major life decisions up there?
SPEAKER_02That didn't make me think any clear. I'm afraid of height. Anyone ever tried to kiss me on that? I'd be like, not insurance.
SPEAKER_01I like this scene because I like I don't mind height, so I understand that would be a debilitating issue for for you if you were involved. I do like this scene because I do like that idea of them just being removed from the world for a minute, and then they have a kiss, and then they come back down and they go into the fairground and it's all marvellous. And they are like now kind of holding hands and kind of much more sort of physically relaxed, because I think they knew that was probably going to need to be happening.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because that's why that's why they got off the train together, isn't it? Every so often, and I didn't think about this when I first watched it because I was just sort of full of the romance of it. I do sometimes now think, when did Jesse last brush his teeth? Because he's been travelling the trains and not being able to afford a hotel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I worry about that. And he's constantly wearing a leather jacket in the sun. So personal hygiene would not be the greatest, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_01I just know. And you know, when people do a lot of travelling with the backpacks on one of those Interrail Europe tickets, great. And I've I never did myself, and I really wish I had. It's one of those things I wish I had. Um, yeah, you don't you do you sleep on the train, you you know, you book your overnight train so you don't have to pay for a hotel, then you can walk around the city the next day. You know, I get the gist of saving the money.
SPEAKER_02May maybe brush his teeth in the toilet where the James made sweet sweet love.
SPEAKER_01Okay, but yeah, a lot went on in that toilet.
SPEAKER_02That toilet sees some action.
SPEAKER_01It's you see, I think if I oh maybe if I was Richard Link later, what I would make happen in that scene is I'd make him have chewing gum in his mouth just so we'd all be calmer about it. But actually, I'm taking away from the romance and I didn't give any thought about any of this when I was younger. It's only now I'm thinking, when did you brush your teeth?
SPEAKER_02See, this is an unchilling.
SPEAKER_01No, it's a different, it's a different ballgame this film when you're on.
SPEAKER_02So now you've gone from keys in the hand, ready to punch somebody with the axe off the train and then ask them when did you let your teeth and have you got LinkedIn Africa with you?
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. Well, that would be the dream. Um, they carry on talking, they carry on walking. This is beautiful, they're talking about anecdotes on their lives, they're talking about the beliefs about the world, worries, and vulnerabilities. And you know, they've got this one evening and they are just in a bubble of life, so they might as well just yeah, let everything out in a way they probably won't talk about with a partner because that's sort of real life. We meet the palm reader.
SPEAKER_02That's again another scene that see when people get brought into it, it loses the magic.
SPEAKER_01I think it adds to it because this is where we see more of their personalities when they have to like deal with somebody else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because she blocks him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because he's a bloody cynic. It's so funny. It's really funny though, because I have no inch, I I'm just not I'm just not someone who would go to a palm, do I don't really believe in any of that fair play if you do. But what I find is watching this, how I'm slightly annoyed by Jessie's cynicism. And I yeah, she's open to the world, she's not saying I truly believe everything she says. She's just going, Yeah, go on, go on. And she doesn't sort of say, Oh, thank you, I'm so grateful you told me this about my life. She just says, Okay, cool, she's sort of open. Jesse is a proper, like, it's just a bit grumpy about it. I just think, oh Jesse, it's not been a tit.
SPEAKER_02But shows the personalities, and that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01You need that interval. And she has a double.
SPEAKER_02So I should have stayed on the train now.
SPEAKER_01It's the first little bit of discord.
SPEAKER_02But equally, what I think about it's done in a nice way, she's not falling out with him, she's just been a banter.
SPEAKER_01What I think about this film is it is whatever, one hour forty or whatever you said, and it's an the entire encapsulation of a relationship. It is the initial thing, it is the sort of first steps, it's the getting to know each other, it's the kissing, it's the sex, it's the ending. So there has to be a little bit of a row here and there, you know, it can't be because it's it's it summarises everything in a relationship in one conversation.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, like in a in a true relationship, you don't always get along, do you? It's you know, just you you've got to be your own person, you've got to stick with your core values of certain things, and you know, if if you you just agree with the the other person all the time, then you're not being true to yourself. So yeah, and then there's today's life lesson just then.
SPEAKER_01Um I do worry though, because like I say, I'm you I'm you're I'm sort of joking said I'd had my keys in my hand, I would be a lot more aware and a lot more wary. But I think even even if like everything was going well and I was getting it really on really well with this guy and we were talking, even if we're just talking, you know, in a safe space, not in a city that I just jumped off a train on. I think now, and it's either because I'm older or because society's changed, I don't know. The minute the guy I I would be looking for red flags from the start. I think we're all more aware of red flags. So, for example, a red flag might be they they talk about Brexit in a positive way, or they talk about Nigel Farage in a positive way. Or, you know, just see where I'm going with this.
SPEAKER_02I knew this is where you were gonna go. But do you know what I mean? But a hundred I think the world's a more cynical place now than we're gonna be. I think we're more divised.
SPEAKER_01I think we're more aware of divisions now because of social media. I think we know every single thing that we hate about other people and we look for it.
SPEAKER_02Well, social media looks more for the end of this. We'll talk about social media at the end.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah. Um, I don't know, I just feel like I would I would be closed off the minute they said like something I thought, oh, that sounds a bit. And these two don't do that, they're open to each other, they're open to each other's conversation mostly. Um and they don't, you know, it's not they push back occasionally at things like this, you know, she pushes back about the fortune teller. But I again I don't know if is that because I'm 47 or is that because it's 2026 and like life is different now, the world is different with the far right are on the rise. That's that's a bit of this film that makes me feel like yes, it was a simpler time. Yeah, you know, they can talk openly and discuss various things, they don't actually talk about politics particularly, but they talk about like lowercase P politics, you know, about sort of society in general. They don't get party political. Um, it's interesting actually. A couple of days ago I watched the second one before sunset. There's a couple of political references in that, not specific but vague. Um, and I thought, oh yeah, that's changed, but then they're older in it, so maybe that's why. Who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have talked about politics when I was uh 19.
SPEAKER_02I think I would have done. Yeah, yeah, I would have done it. I think you were on protest watching that 19.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't, but I definitely have become that person. Okay. The street poet.
SPEAKER_02Again, another another bit that let it down.
SPEAKER_01I love him. I love it. Because again, it feels really realistic.
SPEAKER_02And again No, it didn't because it's the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_01It's not the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_02It's black.
SPEAKER_01It's oh yeah, it's like it's it's after 5 pm.
SPEAKER_02It's black, he's by himself. I wasn't I wasn't sure whether he's supposed to be a bit of a bum or whether he or whether he was like an aristocrat because he was all dressed up really, you know, in a nice in a suit and all this and stuff. And I was like, couldn't figure out what he was supposed to be. He's a street poet. And he wrote this poem about milkshake, and then I completely agree with Jesse on this. Yeah, he probably has the same power, he just insert a word into every single one. Jesse's cynicism. I loved it. That bit where he's just like, yeah, he's probably just the same power for everybody.
SPEAKER_01I feel like Jesse wants to take the it's like he feels he has to jump in, he has to be like the voice of Reason. No, the voice of cynicism and sceptical views. And it's not, there's no reason to. This has happened to me. I have been approached by a street poet in Concert Square in Liverpool, right? It was dangerous. It was wasted lives. Oh my god. Was it the exact same poem that was the I thought it was different, and he wrote it on a postcard, it was dead good. I was with me mate, we were having afternoon beers, and this guy, it was a really sunny afternoon, and this guy was going around, and I genuinely just thought he was asking for money at yeah, I thought that was what he was going to be doing, and he came and was like, and his name was Chester, Liverpool Street Poem. Of course it was. That's what his name was, and he wrote it on a postcard, and I had that postcard for years, and at the moment I can't begin to think where that postcard is, but it might be in a box upstairs. I had it on my um notice board for a long time, but it's just one of those things that's cool, you know. I remember it, I remember him, I remember that day. I wouldn't remember that day if it wasn't for Chester the Street Poet. He wrote me a poem and I had wasted life for it.
SPEAKER_02So just saying Constant Square is not Vienna, been the postcard. I'm killing the drink. Uh Jesse's the voice of cynicism, so is Phil.
SPEAKER_01Constant Square. To be fair, afternoon drinking in the sun, and then this would be the early 2000s. That was a nice it was a nice time.
SPEAKER_02It was a nice time in the early 2000s.
SPEAKER_012000 was nice in Concert Square. It is for anyone not a favourite Liverpool nightlife. What is it? It's quite student area, isn't it? I don't know. It's Ice Hub Works nights out there. Yeah, but but it was like students. It's young people, yeah. It's definitely the dudes.
SPEAKER_02Of a day, I would say, and then of an evening, it was, you know, there's like 80s bars there.
SPEAKER_01There was it's quite flat, it's very loud and very busy.
SPEAKER_02A lot of outdoor tables, big square, lots of bars surrounding it. Bars are all they're all like fun bars, aren't they?
SPEAKER_01They were quite club. Some of them are quite cluby, with very loud.
SPEAKER_00I don't know how to describe it.
SPEAKER_01Loud music. Like even then, I wasn't that asked about that. I didn't really do clubs, but yeah, I was more of a sit on a comfy sofa with a pint and talk, but yeah. Which is why I like this film because everyone talks. Okay. We get to um they go to a basement bar where it's the sort of there's um like pinball and there's you know, games and there's beer and there's a band. I love a basement bar in a European back city, just uh back street.
SPEAKER_02Okay, like that. Okay, rather than just one of them just dominating the table, like yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, isn't that how you would do it?
SPEAKER_02No.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02I get my go, you get yoga.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Well, anyway. Um, so they go there and then they uh they start to talk in this bother playing pinball, they start to talk about their relationship status, which is interesting because they've spent quite a bit of time together at this point. And they've not it's not covered, it's almost like this is where a bit of reality of real life is creeping in now. Um, and when I first watched this, this was the only part of this story. Remember, I had never heard of this film, I did not know where it was going. This was the only part of the story where I thought, oh my god, this isn't gonna end well because Celine is talking about how she wrote a story about her ex about how she murdered him or something, and it was a fictional thing, but then like a therapist like had to tell the police, and I'm like, oh my god. That would have been a way to go, wouldn't it? She's gonna murder Jesse.
SPEAKER_02No, but that wouldn't have been a way to go. She's just a killer, and she just genuinely thought, oh my god, is this like write a book like this and then just have it off with she's a killer, but they just swear to God.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, it it makes me laugh now when I hear that. But that she's basically talking about you know, she's had some shitty relationships.
SPEAKER_02Six months, six months she's been split over hasn't been.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and this is where we find out that Jesse is very much recently single. He came to Europe to see his girlfriend who was studying here, and when he got there, he she'd end it, she basically ended it, and he'd been saving up for ages to come, and this was like someone he loved. So he'd been riding the trains ever since, heartbroken, and then that he got a cheap tick out of Vienna the next day, and this was this was it how it's been for the last few weeks. So it's I don't know, I just think at that point, oh, he's quite raw. So I don't know. I felt really sorry for him because that's a shitty thing to happen. Yeah, he's been saving for the last year to see his girlfriend in Spain, and then he gets there and she bends it.
SPEAKER_02But but isn't that what happens in long distance relationships? But saying that he's travelled there so that yeah, in my in my view of when I've been cutting people's hair in the past and they talk about long-term relationships like at the end before you go to the person, so yeah, it would be very, very raw that.
SPEAKER_01That'd be shit, yeah. Anyway, it's sort of they carry on chatting, but it's sort of interesting to see how they've progressed from sort of these kind of slightly theoretical external things like what they think about life and whatever, and it's now actually themselves and their real feelings. It feels like it's a turning point that real life is kicked in here. They go and they eat some food, um, and this is where they role-play phone conversations.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that was funny, yeah. That was quite good. It was good, it was a good I I enjoyed this. This is probably possibly my favourite part of the movie. Okay. They were talking talking to each other in like the third person about the other person.
SPEAKER_01I thought that was it was a really well-lovely way to make you have to say how you feel without it sort of you saying it. And you see, my instinct, you know, when you go, maybe it doesn't happen on hairdressing courses. Um, courses I've had to go to for work, sometimes there's a role-play scenario.
SPEAKER_02There's always role-playing.
SPEAKER_01And I hate it, hate it so much. Imagine you're talking to a child and the child says this.
SPEAKER_02Imagine there's a client sat in front of you.
SPEAKER_01It's like sodom. No, because the conversation just flows differently when I hate it so much. So, yeah, I was sort of I was prepared to cringe my arse off at this, but actually, I think it's a really lovely scene. It's lovely how they have to tell each other that they're kind of they don't actually say they're falling for each other, but there's definitely oh, this thing happened. Ah, this is new.
SPEAKER_02See, I got I got from the opening conversation they were falling for each other. Well, why else would the film?
SPEAKER_01On the very first time you watched it.
SPEAKER_02No, that's not it.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Stop it. Um, no, I think this is a lovely scene and it feels very tender and very sweet. So then they're sitting outside, they've uh we could we we're quite quickly moving between these various locations, these various scenes.
SPEAKER_02Of the film, it's a very, very quick film, this.
SPEAKER_01So they're sitting outside on a wall, uh, and they start to talk about what is this? What are we doing here? Because it's sort of it feels up until now like it's this little perfect bubble out of time, but actually they're now talking about well, are we gonna see each other again? What's gonna happen? The reality is kicking in the situation, they start to think about the real world, and they basically clearly like each other, but also know that this is stupid, of course. It's it you know, he's in America, she's in Paris, she also doesn't like flying.
SPEAKER_02Well, they also think 1995, which is stupid, but 2026, this it's a completely different world, it's yeah, you know, flights here and there.
SPEAKER_01In this when I watched this in '97, I was at university in Northampton, which is a two and a half hour drive from like Merseyside, where I was from, where my boyfriend lived. And that's two and a half hour drive was like an absolute continent difference because there was no mobile phones, or maybe there were for business people, but I didn't have one, certainly, neither did anyone I knew. And I was queuing up to be able to make a phone call, I'd have to queue up to use the payphone in the halls of residence after six o'clock because it was cheaper, with cash coins, which I never had any of because I was always skinned, and I said I'd have to write letters to contact the boyfriend. Do you know what I mean? It was just like, and this was just everyday life. I mean, anyone who's our age knows this. I just think it's such the I the idea that it of course they can't possibly imagine a future of being able to see because it's at this point they're just talking about are we gonna see each other again? Of course they're not, can't they can't, it's an absolute impossibility. Nonsense.
SPEAKER_02We're now we're now, as you say, because of things like FaceTime and stuff. I I have relatives who live in Australia and I always remember when we were younger, they'd have to wait for a certain time of the day to ring them. Not because the time difference, but because it was so cheap to ring where other times it was dead expensive. But now it's just how many free minutes have you got? It's just fluid, isn't it? Now the way we communicate.
SPEAKER_01It's madness. But this scene really makes me ache for them because they're kind of oh, we are gonna have to say goodbye soon. Um, so they decide to say goodbye here. They say, We won't do it tomorrow morning, we're gonna say goodbye here and I get out of the way. She says bye, he says goodbye, she says au revoir, and he goes later. And it's like this little I love that line. It's just like their little thing the way they say it. It feels like they've got this deadline looming over them, uh, and there's sort of an anxiety about the next morning, which feels very real. And watching it feels real.
SPEAKER_02It's starting to get closer the morning time.
SPEAKER_01It feels real for us as viewers, I think. They go to another basement bar. Um, because of this film, I have basically been on holiday in the past.
SPEAKER_02Are they not more pissed?
SPEAKER_01Well, I've been on holiday in the past and walked, I mean I've done it in Lisbon and I've done it in Krakow. And as I've been walking until I get back to my hotel or something, I've literally walked past a bar that has reminded me of any of the bars in this film. I thought, oh my god, I'm going in. You are so predictable. I all of my feelings kick in because of film. So if I see someone that reminds me of a film that has made me feel I want to be in it. So I'm I've had a very uh happy evening in this back street in Lisbon. Um, but there was a karaoke bar as well, and it was tech good, but it reminded me of this place. Anyway, Jesse walks in and he manages to convince the really sweet bar guy to give him a bottle of wine because he has no money and it's his only night he's got with his own.
SPEAKER_02I have a question now. Okay, right, regarding the sequel, because I've not seen the sequel. Okay. Does it address whether he sent the money to the guy or not? It doesn't. It doesn't address it. Because he might as well rip them off.
SPEAKER_01I worry about this, and again, I worry about it now. I didn't think twice about it back in the day. Yeah, I I really want him to. I hope he did. I bet he didn't. You know, it's like because he also didn't go to the play of the guys.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I wouldn't go to the play of the guys.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I would have done.
SPEAKER_02What if what if Jesse is now a wanted criminal, you know?
SPEAKER_01I feel really bad. I hope he did. I want to believe that he did. But he doesn't they don't mention that, which is yeah, you're right. It would have been quite funny to just because they do mention a few things.
SPEAKER_02One line, there should have been just one line. Oh, do you remember to send money to that guy? That would have been a nice little anyway.
SPEAKER_01Um, so this guy says you have the greatest night of your life. He gives me a bottle of wine, which makes me just grin. I just love it. Uh so then now it's it is pretty dark now. It's we're guessing it's quite late on at night, maybe early hours in the morning, even though.
SPEAKER_02I think it's early hours, very early hours.
SPEAKER_01They're lying in a field, it's a park, they've walked around all day. And this is again where my adult brain kicks in. Um, because this is a sort of the sex scene, which is quite tense.
SPEAKER_02Well, they well, the thing is they talk before this about not having sex, we shouldn't have sex.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then it gets to this scene and it cuts off, and then I was like, Well, did they or didn't they? Look, they they get heated, they have to get it.
SPEAKER_01They basically yeah, the scene ends them rolling around having a good old snog where they've sort of decided that maybe they might want to. They do debate whether or not they should, but again, my adult brain is like, there's not a baby white between them. This is gross. When did he last shower? She's been on a train for hours and hours and hours and walk around the city. If I was her, I'd be wanting to have a quick freshen up.
SPEAKER_02Like the the way they roll around, I'd be worried about dog shit.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I know it's a film, and they we do have to allow it. It's a very realistic film, and that's the problem because we now think of the realism. But yeah, we do have to allow some sort of yeah, let's just let them enjoy their lovely sexy time and not stress about cleanliness. But yeah, that it's always in my head now, which makes me laugh. I think they do decide to have sex. The other issue I now have as a 47-year-old is this would really mess up my back. So no thanks. Where's a nice mattress would be fine? So we're really heading towards the end of the film now. Uh it's dawn, they have a little final wander round, they're back in real time. This is the day now that they are going in mere hours. Jesse takes Selene's picture, not with a smartphone, they don't exist. He does it with his fingers in a square, like you know, kind of frame. He's gonna commit it to memory. And I do like, I do like, you want to talk about smartphones later. I do like the fact that without smartphones, in an era before they happened, there is a sort of purity and magic to this story. Yeah, smartphones just mean, yeah, right, stop numbers, I'll snap you. It's like what they do.
SPEAKER_02Well, this is the thing, you know. We're coming to the scene now where they do say goodbye. Yeah. It is the and it was sad, it was sad this scene, you know. I'll I'll openly admit that. But in today, it's like I'll just add you on Facebook, yeah, I'll snap you.
SPEAKER_01I don't think the youths add people on Facebook. I think they yeah, but they have ways of connecting.
SPEAKER_02TikTok.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, ways of connecting.
SPEAKER_02I'll I'll dance at you on TikTok. So you sound so or I'll s I'll send uh filtered pictures of myself on Snapchat or whatever.
SPEAKER_01God, it's a nudes. I'm hysterical.
SPEAKER_02Oh, they'd be taking nudes in the field.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Oh no. It's just it's just a There's a magic to this, it's because it's time. And this is the thing, you know. I am, you know, as you know, I embrace technology, I love technology, but there is something about the more simplistic time of 1995 where these types of things didn't go on. And this, you know, we we touched upon politics before. And because of social media, people will say things on social media that they wouldn't say in real life. And I think like this in 1995 shows that communication was much, much better then because it was more face-to-face, you know, than it than it is now with with social media and stuff. If they'd have had social media and added social media, would the second and third film have happened because the way it would have it would have fizzled out. Yeah, because they just carried on talking and talking and got bored of each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know, I think so. It's really interesting. I just don't think this story, I just think it's it I just don't think it would work in a social media age. And yet there are three films that take these these people through their lives. So I don't know. But they're at the station now, and this is the end, this is the end of the film, and it's really it is poignant, you're right, it is sad because there's a whole thing where they both clearly want this to not be the end, but they've agreed it is the end.
SPEAKER_02Well, this is the thing, you know. I I took it because like obviously I know the sequels, but I would imagine if you watch the 1995. That's it, they don't see each other ever again.
SPEAKER_01No, that's it. This is the end, as far as we knew, for a very long time. No one had any thoughts of a sequel. So they have like a sort of a gushing of like, oh, have an amazing life, and you know, hope everything, you know, sort of all these things that are so you you want to say so much and it's so hard to know how to even begin. Um, but then very much at the last minute when the train is about to go, they realise they do want to see each other again. Uh, and that feels massively realistic, the scramble to change their minds, you know, at the last moment. And I feel like it was a big relief as an audience member to sort of go, Oh yes, thank you. Good, you do want to see each other again. Yes, come on. But again, instead of swapping phone numbers or addresses, um, they decide in their last seconds together that they will meet up in six months' time at the same place at the station. I think it's gonna be December, it's gonna be freezing. He's gonna have to fly in from America, she's gonna have to come in from Paris, and that's the plan. They she gets on the train, and six months' time they'll see each other again. So it does suddenly at the very last moment feel a lot less angsty because you're like, oh, okay, okay, okay, good. That connection that I've just watched, that beautiful connection between these two lovely people I've just watched the last hour and a half or whatever, isn't dead.
SPEAKER_02But it's still angsty because I've read your first book, and then what if he doesn't turn up and she doesn't know?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, my first book was very heavily influenced and it's up with it. So so it's not a rip-off, it's very different, but there's a whole idea of yeah, someone waiting for someone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_01She says bye, he says goodbye, she says au revoir, and he says later. And then they kiss and she gets on the train. And as her train pulls away, we see Jesse go on an airport bus, I assume he's on the way to the airport. There's a cello sonata playing, and shots of all the places that we've seen in that film that they have been. We see a shot of the park with the glasses on the lawn. Not great. Pick up the glasses, pick up the glasses, a kid could stand on them and break uh cut themselves. Um, we see um oh like the basement bar, and we see the the fountain that they were sitting outside, and we see all the places that have been inhabited by these two people over the last 24 hours, and they all look, I mean it's early morning, they all look blank and sort of empty. Yeah, it's nothing's going on, uninteresting, they look boring, and you realise they weren't boring places when these two were there. They lit them up, and it's like there's a really cool bit at the beginning when they first get off the train, they've had a conversation with the the play guys, and then they stand and they're looking at um an art poster for an exhibit, and they're just sort of and I think Selena says something, Oh, I've seen I've seen this art before, yeah, I really like it. And I think she says something something like, I love how the background blurs into the subject, and I love that about this film at the end where the background Vienna has blurred into the subject so much that we have had this sparkling, brilliant, beautiful connection that we followed around these places all night, and then when the people have gone, the background is meaningless.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And I thought it was so beautiful at the end, beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_02I I also say the background in the out exterior scenes of the city and stuff just reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because I think that was filmed out in Austria. What was it? Oh yeah, Gene Wilder. Yeah, yeah, the Gene Wilder one just reminds me very much so.
SPEAKER_01Taking away the beautiful magic and profundity of what I've just said by bringing in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
SPEAKER_02No, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an absolute magical building, beautifully.
SPEAKER_01It's creepy. Um, anyway, that's the end. We see Celine on a train, um, and we see Jesse on his bus. And I think the last shot is Celine just kind of looking, basically not slept all night, but just looking like she's closing her eyes and having a little smile. And then the music kicks in and the titles roll. Okay, that was me talking about the love of my life. So, no pressure. What did you think?
SPEAKER_02So be aware that you'll be trampling on my dreams. So the first time I watched this um 14 years ago, it was okay. I thought it was, you know, it was watchable, and you know, we got bored in a few bits and things like that. Second time I watched it, I enjoyed it much more.
SPEAKER_01Second time was the other day, last week, whenever.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, just over a week ago. Okay. And there was I think uh possibly the reason of it during it more is there's less pressure on this because this is my view of the film, where before it was like, I have to watch it because this is one of Nikki's favourite films ever. I should have to like this and stuff like that because we're all friends. And there was a lot less pressure on it, so I enjoyed the film for what it was. My my criticisms of the film was you know, I brought this up during obviously the conversation when they brought in extra people to their conversation, the actors, the poets, the palm reader, it fell down a little bit for me because I wanted just to see them two interact with each other. I didn't need a third wheel in there trying trying to move a scene along and if it fell down those those scenes for me, I thought particularly the actors, you know, that didn't move the film anyway. I thought they were really poor at acting, the actors. Um but overall I enjoyed the film.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Enjoy you see now, we need to dig into enjoy it. God wouldn't you enjoyed the film? Like it passed the time because otherwise you'd just be like, have nothing going on in your life. Or you actively thought this has moved me in some way, this has added to my view of the world.
SPEAKER_02What I will add, if it was flicking through the channels and it was just starting, I'd sit and watch it.
SPEAKER_01Again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'd watch it again. At this point, okay. Yeah. I wouldn't stay in because it was on. Uh, because I own it now. Uh I bought it for the podcast. Quite right, that'll enhance your life no end. But if it was on, I would watch it. You know, I I enjoyed it enough. Will it make me watch the sequels? Possibly now.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_02To continue the story. We've we've now, the pair of us in this season have now started two trilogies. You with Star Wars and us and me with this. So we're gonna have to complete the trilogies of this.
SPEAKER_01I don't so okay. Well, here's the thing. I would happily do the second one, which is before sunset, which again I told you I watched a few days ago just because it was in my mind. I don't know if I would do the third one. I've watched it, obviously. It's it's it's very good. It's just so here's the thing, and we're gonna talk more about this in a minute. So my next question is what do you think happens next at the end of this film? Hang on, let me explain. I watched this when I was 19, right? I think this which was a couple of years after it came out. I think the next one was nine whole years after this.
SPEAKER_02I do know there's a time jump.
SPEAKER_01There is a massive time jump because it wasn't like months at the time. Yeah, it's not six months. So we'd catch up with them nine years after this film. And so I was well, it was so I was in my early twenties then, and the stuff that's going on for basically what the three sequels, though sorry, the three films and the trilogy are the right I uh I'm the similar age to them each time, and my life is similar to what's going on in their lives each time. So I was like, I wasn't actually single when I watched this, but I was the whole world is ahead of me, I've got all these opportunities coming. Life is for the living, exciting opportunities are on the way. The next one, oh yeah, that's not what life's like that's not what life's like, and they're at a point where they're kind of a bit disillusioned too with their individual situations, and I'm like, yeah, that's how I felt when I watched this. Then the third one is uh again, different problems at a different age, and I related to the third one in the third one, yeah. Um and I related very uh realistically to each one because they've aged as I've aged, so the third one felt really bleak to me because it was just like, oh god, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, and that means I don't re-watch it very often. In fact, it's interesting you brought this up. Um, shout out to Rach, who does my nails, she's an absolute legend. She we have a lot of things in common that we like, cultural stuff, and she loves these films. So I've been saying to her a few weeks ago I was gonna we were doing this and I was having to watch it again before sunrise, and she's like, Oh my god, I'm gonna watch it again. I love it. So she watched it. She saw that she messaged me about it, and so we were having a conversation about that. And then when she was then talking about um, she'd watch the second one as well last time I went to see her. So I said, Have you seen the third? And she goes, No, I've not seen that yet. And I'm like, right, okay, watch it before my next manny, I'll watch it again. So I am gonna watch it again, and we'll talk about it because I'm really fascinated what she thinks because she's exactly in the same situation as the people in the third one in terms of age and uh relationship status.
SPEAKER_02So I'll make a proposal live on the podcast now. How about we do two extra, or we'll will be four extra bonus episodes for this series and complete the trilogies and complete the trilogies?
SPEAKER_01Well, hang on, there's a million ones for Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02No, there's two the trilogy, the original trilogy I'm talking about, The Empire Strax will say the Jedi. Then I've got before Moonrise, before Twilight, before whatever they're called before Fernal Equinauts. I've got to watch them.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I like the idea of this because I do like I would be interested to see what you think of the second one.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so let's let's after the podcast. But maybe like a few weeks after the series has ended, we we release a couple more. Okay, okay, we'll see.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh yeah, I'll do that. Just stress button. Everyone hear that it's a good thing. Okay, okay, okay. Right. We just need to get back. So forget the sort of sequel and the the third, forget that for a second. This ended as it ended. What did you think of the ending? As in six months later we'll see each other. Goodbye, goodbye. What did you think of that? Did you think they'll meet each each other? You didn't.
SPEAKER_02I didn't.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Why? Just because it was like just a snapshot shot in time. They they were very much in the the moment, and then real life kicks in after that.
SPEAKER_01See, I did, when I was 19, I did think, yeah, they're gonna do it, they're gonna meet each other, they're going to because they both want to, they've got a plan. And they haven't got the opportunity to cancel.
SPEAKER_02No, but but the the way I the way I see this film is that one evening or one day, uh whatever you think is a single snapshot of them being outside of their ordinary life. And then once Jesse gets on that plane, once Celine gets on that train, they go back to their normal lives and normal life resumes, and you you know, you're then too busy and other things kick in for that to actually happen.
SPEAKER_01Do you see? I would have was of the mind that, yes, I get what you're saying, but this was such an important thing that happened. This was like a you don't have connections like this with everybody. So this was such a sort of flash in the pan, that's not the right phrase, lightning bolt that this has to be explored more, surely. This has to be followed up. Because this doesn't happen with everybody. Okay, certainly I think at this age we know this doesn't happen with everybody, but like then maybe you think, Oh, I'm gonna have these connections, all these people coming off.
SPEAKER_02This is the thing, you know, after she's met Jesse, she then goes off three months later back in Paris, yeah, meet somebody else. You know, six months is a long time to go, I want to stay single so I can go meet this one guy. I understand that who I've met once and we just had a connection.
SPEAKER_01But do you not think that when you meet other people like in Paris, she's a student, she's gonna like you know have opportunities to meet guys? Do you not think she'll be constantly comparing that hookup? You know, I don't think she's gonna wait for him in that sense. Possibly but she'll be comparing that to how she felt when she was with him, and he kind of speaks to her soul. Possibly, but potentially, maybe she doesn't know, but she wants to explore that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, like you know, in the in the real life situation, you know, she'll meet somebody else, and yes, you'll click with them, or he will click with her, and another person, it might never be the same, but it it, you know, it it just I just can't see that.
SPEAKER_01No, fair enough. It's interesting. I was always very optimistic about this film, I was always very optimistic about the ending that they would do that. But I also just like you know, I like an ambiguous ending, I like the fact that we wasn't sort of told to us, um, and in a way, um so I'm not gonna tell you anything about the sequel now if you're gonna watch it, but it does exp, you know, they explain there's a whole thing, we understand what happens, um, but it's fascinating, it's good the way they do it. Yeah, the sequel's great. Honestly, I I think a lot of people reckon that the second one is better than the first. And everyone loves the first. The second one is really good. One of the things I think is interesting, we touched on it earlier on, as in, would you get off the train in this scenario? I think that it's not about is this guy a sociopath? Is this guy full of red flags?
SPEAKER_02That's his that's his 2026 thinking.
SPEAKER_01But I think when okay, I think when I was younger, my worry would have been, is this guy really dull? Like, what if I get off the train with him with a view to spending the next sort of 24 hours with him? And he's a fucking bull. Do you know what I mean? That would have been my overriding worry.
SPEAKER_02She's never stopped you being friends with me.
SPEAKER_01That would have been my worry back then. And is that just because that's what young people think? Is that because things felt safer then? No, things weren't safe in the 90s, let's be clear.
SPEAKER_02No, I think things were safer then than they are now.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I don't think that's true. I certainly didn't feel safer. I still had keys in my hand walking home from places.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but but I think like as as I say, the cultural landscape has changed so much now. Uh there's always been red flags in people, there's always been dangerous and more. Yeah, but I think now, I'll say now with the glit the gluttony of um Netflix serial killer documentary, watch Roll Scared and everything.
SPEAKER_01I was very, very aware. I meant keys in hand, waiting for people, you know, all that stuff. And yet I would still at that point have thought, if Jesse, let's forget Ethan Hawke, because he's obviously not realistic in this scenario, if a guy like Jesse had chatted to me on a train and we'd had a connection and it felt really real and we'd had a lovely conversation about our childhood's nephew, and he said, Look, do this, come on, I've got 24 hours to kill, why not? You can just get on the next train if I'm weird. I would have absolutely can seriously considered doing that. And now I wouldn't, because I wouldn't even have the conversation. I'd be like, when he starts the conversation, I'm like, Yeah, right, and then just shut it down and get my head in my butt.
SPEAKER_02But we all wear headphones now. This is the thing. Everybody's in headphones, aren't they? Or you know, watching a pod listening to a podcast, watching something on your phone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's just it's diff times just different now. Different times. All right, Boomer.
SPEAKER_01It does make me laugh though, watching this. I've sort of hinted at this a bit. As an older person watching this now, I love it because it plugs me back into who I used to be. But if I watch this objectively now, which I find difficult to do anyway, there is an element of self-indulgence about this. These two people have got nowhere to be for the next day. What's that like? Do you know what I mean? They've got no kids, they've got no partners, they've got no jobs.
SPEAKER_02And they all I I will say that it seems like a very wealthy thing to do where they just go. I know, I know in the movie they don't afford a hotel. They can't afford a hotel like they've spent up. Yeah. But just something like, oh yeah, it doesn't matter, well, you know, money, money was not an issue, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01I don't think it's money is not an issue. I think they're in a the time of their life where they don't need to worry about paying for stuff. She's a student, she's on her way back to La Sabon. He is, I don't know, I don't I don't know if he has he doesn't talk about a job, but he's been travelling, so he has this time off. He's saved up his money for ages to visit his girlfriend. He's bought the cheapest ticket out of Vienna, which means he's had to kind of fill in time with this URL ticket, which was pretty cheap travel back then. And he can't afford a hotel. And the you know, does he pay for it to get into the club and then he says buy me a beer and they're counting pennies and he asks for a free bottle of wine? I don't think they are wealthy or advantaged. But is that is that I think they're young and they've got no responsibilities.
SPEAKER_02But is that a case of like again, 90s cash machine points where there's readily available?
SPEAKER_01No, I just think I think they're absolutely skin. They're both skin, they've not got proper jobs yet, they're just they're they're 21 or something, aren't they? They're meant to be like 21, 22. I just find but but that's what I mean. The self-indulgence of it is in, I mean, oh my god, I can't remember the last time, and I have done it, I can't remember the last time, it's decades and decades ago where I sat up talking to someone all night. Like that kind of a house party, you know. Again, young, no job, no responsibility, no, no need to be awake tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02Now it's just insomnia because you can't sleep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know it's funny, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02You'll pull a nine, but not because it wants to be.
SPEAKER_01I just love I love it, and I loved it then, but it does make me go, oh yeah, that isn't how my life is, and no one's life is like that at this age. And it reminds me, it's so that's like the it's like the emotional, I'm emotionally too old for this now. Whereas I remember physically, um, my flatmate had a boyfriend who was very sporty, and he came in one day, he's reading the paper, and he's like, Nikki, what do you think about this uh Liverpool player that's been signed for England? I didn't have a clue because I didn't really follow Liverpool men's team at all, but yeah, I was the token scouter in the house. Um and I was like, all right, great. And it was Michael Owen who'd been called up at 19 or 18 or something, I don't know. And I was the year older than him, and I remember going, Oh no, I'm never gonna get called up for England. Obviously, it was never going to get it.
SPEAKER_02I still think they're gonna get called up for England.
SPEAKER_01But you know, like it's I uh it made me go, Oh god, people younger than me are doing cool things. Okay, that's that's gone now, and it feels like this now, like this. I am too old to be I can't I will never enjoy the emotional impact of this film in real life ever now. The time is gone.
SPEAKER_02The the the funny thing is, um because of my prudent job working for delivery company, I'm probably now my fittest where I could walk all night.
SPEAKER_01I could not walk all night, my knees. Walk around all night. I my left hip throbs if I walk too far. Yeah, honestly, it's it's a yo it's a young person's game, this film, innit? It also reminds me again on this sort of no responsibility, no sort of um they can they've got the freedom to do this, which I love. There is a print, and I don't think you'll have seen it, because it comes up with my algorithms all the time, but we have different different things. And it is, I I wish I could credit the artist, but I'm gonna make everybody know, in fact, I'll put it in the show notes, I'll Google it. A print of a a drawing of a couple, young couple, uh man and woman with a push chair and a baby, and they look absolutely knackered. And then you see a woman standing opposite them who is wearing a top hat with a feather, a blazer and knickers, and she said, and it and this it says um it's the adventures of lady no kids. And the caption is, I think I'm gonna follow this goose and see where it ends up. And she's basically this woman with the top hat and feather and blazer and knickers is like, no kids, just gonna go follow a goose. I just l it's silly, but I just love that whole idea of she has no responsibilities to tie her down like children, like the couple who look tired are, and she's gonna follow a goose. Why not? And this film reminds me of that. That it's like, Do you want to get off the train and talk to me for 24 hours? Well, my class is starting a few days. Yeah, I can do that. You know, he's filling in time to get a flight. I love that period of life where they have no responsibilities, no ties, they've got nowhere to be the next day, and they can indulge. There's something else to add, you brought him up earlier. This is Richard Linklater's film. So he wrote it directly, he co-wrote it, and then he did the other trilogy, the others in the trilogy.
SPEAKER_02Well, I didn't know it was the same directory.
SPEAKER_01Oh right, so this is the thing, this is his vision, and he did this, and he did them all with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and they get credited, as I said earlier, uh with writing the next two. But he's worked with Ethan Hawke loads.
SPEAKER_02So this is like what's he done with Ethan Hawke?
SPEAKER_01So, did you ever see Boyhood?
SPEAKER_02I've heard of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's amazing. I like Richard Lingle because what he does is he because with the before trilogy and with uh Boyhood, he really plays with these long stories over time. So obviously, the before series, it's like three separate films, and there's a big chunk of time, and we didn't know that this was gonna that would be a sequel for a long time. But with boyhood, he filmed it. Now, please fact-check me because I remembered it at the time, but I can't remember it now. I think he filmed it every year for 12 years, a chunk of time every year for 12 years. So we saw the character of the boy grow from being a boy to being a man. Wow, that's a commitment. It is, and Ethan Hawke played the dad, and so we saw him age over time, and the mum was Patricia Arquette, and again, she just aged naturally over time, like a mum, I think it was set in Texas, a mum in Texas might. And it was just even without any other, even if it was rubbish, even if nothing, no one had done their job well and everyone was terrible. That concept was boss.
SPEAKER_02But that's that's incredibly difficult to commit time to, isn't it? Yeah, I mean how do you know what you're gonna be doing in 10 years' time?
SPEAKER_01I remember that the sister of the family was played by Richard Linkleater's daughter. I think I remember reading at the time, she you know, by the time she got to being like a teenager, she was a bit like pissed off having to do this every year, like Dad's project.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Dad's Dad's pet project. That's that's not gonna make any money.
SPEAKER_01But it you know, the the idea that they were committed, and it's brilliant, it's such a good film. And what annoyed me, and it shouldn't annoy me because hey, who cares about Oscars? But it was nominated for best Oscar, it didn't win. And I don't think there could be anything else it could be up against that doesn't win against that concept and that project of it. It was um Birdman, the Michael uh Keaton thing. That was that was all right, it was fine, and it was nice, and they had the conceit of it being all like one continuous take, even though it wasn't actually, but whatever. They had that conceit, which was fine. But to me, Richard Linklater should, I mean, he should definitely have got best a director at some point in his life because he's done so many cool things. He's doing Blue Moon at the moment, so that's what he's promoting with Ethan Hawke again at the moment.
SPEAKER_02So is he like Ethan Hawke's go-to director?
SPEAKER_01They do a lot together, they do, and he did do School of Rock, so but that's always makes me laugh when I remember that because it feels like it's not the same. It's a great comedy.
SPEAKER_02It feels like a completely different vibe to what we've just watched and other stuff you're talking about. Yeah, uh I I would assume that would be like a studio uh head going, you have to do this. If you want to do your pet project, you've got to direct this for us. They often do things like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know. I just I just know that when I see he is uh attached to a project, I'm like, okay, great. That's I'm in, you know, regardless.
SPEAKER_02Well, I haven't seen many Ethan Hawke films.
SPEAKER_01Ah not even like Gataka, because I feel like that's more your thing.
SPEAKER_02I've seen that and didn't like it. I think I switched it off halfway through. Wow. Yeah, I think it was boring.
SPEAKER_01I think I watched it because Ethan Hawke was in it after all of this before stuff.
SPEAKER_02I think, if I remember right, he might be I could be misremembering this, but I'm sure he's in a kid's film called The Explorers. I don't know. I very young in that. He was in Dead Poets. Dead Poets is very young. It's been that long since I've seen that, I didn't know he was in that, but I've seen that very, very good film. A training day. My first memory of seeing him. Yeah. Uh that's an amazing film.
SPEAKER_01It is, but again, I wanted Jesse to be in that film. You know, anytime I see him now, I'm like, oh, why is Jesse not in this film? So yeah, I struggle with it. I know he is, and he's very, he's very good. And I also, if you follow him on Instagram as I do, I don't. He's incredibly reflective and philosophical about life, but you know, about the craft of acting. He's fascinated. I remember seeing um do you remember in the actor studio? It used to be on telly, it's like his his interview in that feels like a YouTube thing now, doesn't it? Yeah, James Lipton.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a whole I used to love that. Anyway, his interview on that was just I mean, he was only young, he wasn't particularly maybe he was in his 30s at the time. But it was profound, you know. He came up with these great truths about acting and he seemed really likable, but he seemed really reflective about like the art of it all. Like he didn't seem to want he wasn't chasing fame. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02It was all about the work. You don't hear of like negative stories about you know, I I hate these like character actors who never leave character when they're drawing a film. I mean, I I never get that. That's fine. You're an actor, you you you turn up, you do your scene, and that's it.
SPEAKER_01Well they I love how you're that's your advice to anyone.
SPEAKER_02When I when I was in school from certain stages, no, but it's things like I've heard of people playing characters and sending other actors dead pigs' heads because that's a thing you think the character would be. No, no, that's that that is that is a uh a real one. That's a real thing, okay. Um so yeah, I don't like that. And you know, he he seems to come across as a a good guy from what I've seen.
SPEAKER_01The other night I watched him in Juliet Naked, which is just an adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel. And the novel, as always, the novel is better because it's a lot fuller, there's loads of more story and stuff. But they've made a decent kind of rom-com, really, um, in the film. And Ethan Hope plays this aging rock star who kind of crashed out in the 90s and no one's seen him since, and it focuses on this guy who is like head of the fan club basically, and like it's a bit of an online obsessive about this guy from the from the past, this rock star. Um, and his girlfriend is so pissed off with him and so annoyed that he's like obsessed with this Tucker Crow rock star. But then she ends up um fighting, they end up having a conversation like an online conversation, and they end up uh getting together for a brief moment. So it's really funny. She boots out the guy and she has this sort of little kind of fling in the book, it's more, um, with with Ethan Hook. But the point is that this sort of slightly damaged, slightly jaded, slightly kind of yeah, I was famous back in the 90s and now I just want a quiet life. The way he looks, the way he acts, it's kind of like Jesse, it's like the older Jesse. I see, I see Jesse growing up like that.
SPEAKER_02The plot of that film reminds me of uh one with Hugh Grant and Du Braymore. Oh, music and lyrics. I know, I love that. Hugh Grant just makes you laugh. Brilliant. Which which is actually well is a good little thing for our next podcast.
SPEAKER_01Oh, stuff. If you're piling on all the next podcasts, we've got a plan. Yeah, we've got a plan. I think we should find out what some other people think instead of us banging on. So, have you done any research?
SPEAKER_02I told all my research at the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01What is it?
SPEAKER_02100% on uh Rotten Tomatoes, yeah, and Rotten Tomatoes and the fact that the director also did School of Rock.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, thank you for that insight that I didn't know what not. Okay, so this is I've not got loads to share, but it was just interesting. I found um an article called Before Sunrise, the charm of simplicity and emotional depth. And it just seemed to sum up exactly how I felt when I was watching it for the first time. It felt like you know, I was watching my life unfold on screen. And in this article, um, and the link, all these links will be in the show notes. It said It's as if we are experiencing it in real time so intensely that we completely immerse ourselves in the character's skin. Feeling the butterflies in the stomach, the sparkle in the protagonist's eyes is like a direct and immediate experience. This film evoked in me a profound and overwhelming emotion. I do feel like that's what people get from this film, maybe not you, but like people who love this film, it's not just oh they enjoyed it, they feel like it spoke to them on some really deep level.
SPEAKER_02I can see, I can see that. I can see, like, you know, what different types of people, different characters will get different things out of a film like this, you know. Like, you know, some people, um like you yourself, right? I'm not saying this is just what you got out of it, but the scenery, the the beauty of where they are, and things like that, and others will Be the in-depth characters, the way they look at each other, and so everybody's gonna get their own little thing out of it.
SPEAKER_01And I I get that's how we say all of that together. I just don't think you can divorce them from the setting. I think it just speaks, I think it speaks to some people on such a human level, on such a existential level, that it's beyond it's it's bigger than a film. That's what I think, and that's what I'm gonna say. That's where I'm gonna leave it at.
SPEAKER_02No Star Wars.
SPEAKER_01The Chicago film scene um uh wrote a really interesting, you know, sort of uh it's called the conversational intimacy of before sunrise. But they do mention it's it's worth reading the whole thing. But the bit that it made me smile is this they're talking all night, basically. They're walking and talking all night, but nobody ever yawns.
SPEAKER_02Nobody yawns or yawnate.
SPEAKER_01We don't see anyone go to the toilet, which is fine. I don't need to see that level of reality. And we see them going into pubs and stuff, so we know that they're they will have had access. I just I still worry about the lack of wet wipes because that's that reminds me of a thing.
SPEAKER_02Um, do you remember the TV saying it's 24?
SPEAKER_01Yes, of course. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Nobody ever seen a meet or go the toy journey's 24 hours.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of stress as well, surely. Um also I'll add the link to the it's a Reddit um thread. It's the German couple's argument translated. Right. And it's so stupid. But if you read it, it is such a stupid argument, and it feels exactly like an old married couple who've been together forever and really are pissed off with each other, particularly if they're travelling on a train and have been stuck together for ages. It just sums up exactly what they would probably argue about. Um there's a website called nofilmschool.com, and there's a a piece they've written called How to Write a Conversation. It's basically tips for screenwriters. Um, and they use this as an example, this film is an example of really good practice. So, three tips of how to write a conversation for a script. One is to rewrite it with the actors, and that's what Richard Linklater has done has done here, and it's what he definitely did, as in they were credited in the next two. Ethan Hook and Julie Delpy went through this script, like constantly workshopped it, made it exactly how it was. There's no ad ad libbing or improvisation, so every little bit that looks so natural has been planned to be. But the actors did that, so they kind of knew what they could sell. Um the next tip is to allow for silence, and so this always makes me think of the the you know, the listening booth in the record store where they're not saying a word and it's just some music on in the background, but they say so much with their eyes and their body language and all that, you know. And then the third tip is that tangents feel natural in conversation. So this whole conversation that they have from getting off the train, well, from when they meet on the train, they're just going off at random tangents, talking about life, talking about experiences, talking about what they think about various things. And it doesn't actually have to be that you know, they have to talk about everything that's plot-based about how they're gonna get to there, how they're gonna get a drink, how they're gonna get to the station the next day, how they're gonna what they're gonna do in the future. It the tangents about random stuff feel really natural. I think this film, as they make clear in this piece, really embody quality conversation writing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really that's interesting uh to find out that the actors sat down because they must have read the original script and got into the head of what the character would be, and then obviously Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy must have been, I don't think they would say this, I think they would do this, I think, and that that's really interesting. And I think one one of the greatest things that cinema does but doesn't do often enough is silence. You know, if from when you go to big screen, it's always loud, there's always fill, you know, filling in everything. But sometimes when it just quietens down enough, that can be one of the biggest impacts you can have. And like you say, that listen and booth scene where it's just it just works really well.
SPEAKER_01I think we it's worth remembering when we talked about the fish call wonder. The the actors rewrote that with well, it was with John Cleese, wasn't it? But remember um Michael Palin saying, Don't you do you're doing too much, John? Yeah. I may be misquoting him there, paraphrasing it certainly, where he said, You're not trying to be funny, this you're supposed to be the heart, not the the comedy. And I think, yeah, about having the actors be involved, I think definitely shapes something better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean it's depends on the actors. Do you think well, yeah, it definitely depends on the actors. But I know, like I remember I remember it was one of the Fast and the Furious films, kind of it's not it's not troubles me. Right, had Jason Staterman and The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, yeah, and apparently they both had it into their contract that uh they had to throw as many punches as the other guy, or only get hit as many times as the other guy. You imagine them sat around the writer and going, hang on, he shot one more guy than me, I want to shoot another guy and all this. So, yeah, I can imagine it's great when you've got the right actors doing their job as like Ethan Hawke did and Julie Delpy there, but also awful when you've got egos in the room going, I want this, I want that. It must be Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, at that point, I guess the director has a tight rein on things and the writers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you know the reviewer Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian? Ever come across him?
SPEAKER_02I think when I've read The Guardian, I don't think I've come across him at all.
SPEAKER_01So he uh he's a regular reviewer, he's done it for years. Um and that was meant to be sarcastic. Oh, it didn't come off. Um, because lots of people do read The Guardian, so he's taking a piss. You talk about me here. Um he's done it for years, and often if you Google, like, so if I Google you know reviews for whatever film I'm looking for, he comes up a lot. And I know from experience that we don't get on.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01He's an older man, um, and I sometimes think that is why we do we don't have the same opinions. I don't know. I think he's gone the same way. Well, he's the same as Mark Commode's gone for me. I'm sure lots of people think Mark Hermod has great reviews. I've started to feel like he doesn't necessarily see the films the same way as I see them, so that's fine, we're all different. But anyway, Peter Bradshaw, I know, is not someone I generally agree with, and yet, and yet, we're big enough Peter Bradshaw. So he reviewed Before Sunrise last year for their 30th anniversary reshowing in the cinema. And as I started to read, I thought, oh god, what's he gonna say? He's gonna slag it off, he's gonna say it's self-indulgent, he's gonna say, you know, it's it hasn't aged well or whatever. And which is interesting that those are my worries he was gonna say, as though those are my worries. Because he doesn't say them. Anyway, here's a quote: it is the lightness of this film which is still charming. Jesse and Celine are free from everything, free from work worries or family cares, but they're also free from the gravity of cause and effect, the world of consequences and responsibilities. They bounce and float around the streets of Vienna like astronauts of love. That's interesting. That was beautiful. I mean, again he's not saying it's a heavyweight film, he's saying it's kind of light and fluffy because he haven't got any responsibility, but it is light and fluffy because he haven't got any responsibility.
SPEAKER_02But that's how a film like this is supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01Next week, it's your turn to choose the film. Have you decided what it's going to be? I have indeed.
SPEAKER_02I think it's one of my favourite rom-coms. Okay. In fact, it may be my favourite rom com.
SPEAKER_01Interesting, because you are not, I would say, a rom com guy often. That's not the impression you give off.
SPEAKER_02Well, I do like rom coms. They've got to have a bit of heart to them.
SPEAKER_01You've got to have a bit of a rom and a bit of a com.
SPEAKER_02You've got to have a little bit of comedy and a bit of romance. Go on then, what is it? It's Notting Hill, the Hugh Graham film.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. We've not done any Richard Curtis yet.
SPEAKER_02No, I don't think we have. I'm sure they'll come up more the longer we do this.
SPEAKER_01Well, maybe from you. No, okay. Open minds. We're going in next week at Notting Hill, that's fine. Uh and if people want more, where can they find you online?
SPEAKER_02Toffee Zaros on YouTube and Phil Time on TikTok.
SPEAKER_01And I'm at NikkiBond.com, or you can search for the Lisa McCaulay Stories online. Thanks for listening. Till the next time. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_02Bye.