Before Sunset, the follow-up to this film, I have seen some years ago at a film festival, and at the time did not have any context to it. I had not seen Before Sunrise, nor heard of it, nor did I know its actors. Still, for a film that only has eightysomething minutes of dialogue and walking around to offer, it was marvelously entertaining, and the final scene and final line of dialogue is unforgettable.
Now many years later, the earlier film. There is not much to be said, really, it is exactly as charming or annoying or boring (whatever your preconception to this kind of romantic comedy in the purest sense of the term) as you would expect. The dialogue spoken by people in their early twenties is as naïve as you can expect from people that age, it is all not important but exactly you would want it if you were 23 and having a night out in Vienna with a slightly too cute guy / girl. Fine entertainment, absolutely lifting the spirits if you allow it to. I think I do prefer the later film because of the actors being more mature in looks and attitudes, but that may be due to the order in which I watched them. The true star, in any case, is Vienna and its odd people, a mixture of artists and good-for-nothings and culture and architecture and that static feeling of being in a large outdoor museum reeking of dust.
thomas4cinema 