There are many things to be said about the Before trilogy, among them the impressive range of its defining qualities: the long tracking shots of extended dialogue in which both Jesse and Céline, played with natural charisma and chemistry by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, take up the threads of…
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Love in the Afternoon (1972)
The image of a charming twosome, slack and romantically engaged, each leaning toward the other in one of those countless Parisian cafés to whose notability the cinema has made a profound and immemorial contribution: it is Frédéric with his potential lover Chloé, a holdover from his youth having returned to…
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Pauline at the Beach (1983)
What could be more egocentric than wanting from the sensation of another person the full throttle of desire, passion, and every shade of transcendent experience? And what could be more ridiculous, more naïve, more dreamy-eyed, and more shamelessly hopeful? And what more human? Around this and its associated myths Pauline…
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L’Atalante (1934)
As the congregants of a wedding walk to the riverside, accompanying newlyweds leaving by barge, a woman exclaims, “couldn’t she marry a local boy?” to which another quickly responds that “she always has to be different.” But the poignant difference is to be one of love. The marriage of Jean…
