Introduction(s)
5 to 6 years ago during my god-foresaken teenage years, I watched a movie subtitled in Arabic on the TV. This movie is Before Sunrise starring Ethan Hawke and the stunning Julie Delpy. The story behind the movie is plain and simple, but the concept put into play has set the tone for my dating life for the years to come since.
Ethan Hawke, playing James "Jesse" Wallace, is an
American tourist who bought the Eurrail pass and had traveled around Europe for
a couple of weeks. His final destination is the beautiful Austrian capital
where he is catching a cheap flight the next day back to the US. Jesse’s first
destination in Europe was Madrid wherein he stayed with his friends and girlfriend
spending a holiday, but because the latter was hitting on other guys and other
past disagreements, Jesse went on a trip on his own, thus breaking up with his
girlfriend and giving himself some time to clear his mind.
Julie Delpy, called Céline, is a young Parisian girl who speaks very good English because she had spent some
years in the US and London and is taking the same train from Budapest back to Paris
after visiting her grandmother.
The movie starts with a German couple on the train fighting
over the fake news in the newspapers or something, and soon it apparently stems to a bigger
issue where the woman loses it and crumples her husband’s newspaper while
making her way to the next wagon. Out of boredom, Jesse assumes that Céline can
speak German and enquires what the whole thing was about to which she says she
doesn’t know. That sparkled the beginning to what-it-is-to-become the most
romantic story I’ve ever seen on TV until this day.
After a short playful banter, Jesse feels like drinking some
coffee in the lounge and asks Céline if she wants to join. Céline, faking
reluctance by slightly arching her eyebrows, agrees and they both go to the lounge and order their coffee with a
small remark on how Europeans are not service-oriented from Jesse.
On a cup of coffee with the serene natural scenery seen from the window, they talked and teased each other of this and that. Little did they know, this short conversation establishes the crux upon which the whole movie is built: the connection of minds that transcends all bodily desires and cliché bullshit.
On a cup of coffee with the serene natural scenery seen from the window, they talked and teased each other of this and that. Little did they know, this short conversation establishes the crux upon which the whole movie is built: the connection of minds that transcends all bodily desires and cliché bullshit.
The acting, the script, the small gestures, the body
language… all subtly hint at the delicacy of the connection these 2 random
train travelers have developed in that short amount of time.
The train finally reaches Vienna, and it was time for Jesse
to leave the train and spend the night in some hotel and catch his flight the
next day. But he had this crazy idea. Instead of just saying goodbye and never
seeing the Frenchie again, Jesse becomes enthusiastic about this time traveling
concept which he so meticulously comes up with.
"Jump ahead ten,
twenty years. Your marriage just doesn’t have that same energy anymore. You
start to blame your husband. You think of all the guys you’ve met and all the
ones you never pursued and how things might have been different if you’d just
picked up with one of them. Well, I’m one of them. You can consider this
traveling back in time, to see what you are missing".
And then he boldly proceeds to asking her to get off the
train with him and spending the night together just walking around Vienna and
talking about whatever their wild imaginations could conjure up.
As you’ve guessed it, the only characters in this movie are
Jesse and Céline, with a few side ones, two lost wanderers who happened to be on the same train
walking around the streets of Vienna and discussing topics such as death, first
sexual feelings, their parents' generations… and so much more.
So being the romantic little kid that I was (and still am,
kinda), after watching the movie, I have always wanted to simply go to Vienna
and trace the gentle steps of Jesse and Céline. Such dream was buried in my mind as it was impossible for me to get to Vienna from Tunisia because I can't afford it and the paperwork for the VISA will be so depressing. But now since I'm residing in Budapest for my studies, Vienna is right next doors and I thought it was time that I finally do this and make my silly dream come true.
This blogpost is some pictures of the places visited in the
movie, mentioning along the way some of the things they've talked about, to give you a sense of the spontaneity of the movie. However, it is important to mention that although they seem like they are smoothly walking from one street to the other on tape, the real life locations are pretty far from each other and sometimes, a subway or a tram is needed to get to the destination.
I haven't visited all the places wherein the movie was shot, but I daresay that I've been to a bunch of them to make an appropriate blogpost.
Alright, enough with the introductions and on with the locations!
I haven't visited all the places wherein the movie was shot, but I daresay that I've been to a bunch of them to make an appropriate blogpost.
Alright, enough with the introductions and on with the locations!
Westbahnhof Train Station
The story starts here. This is the train station where Céline and Jesse first set foot in Austria. They get off the train and they head to the lockers inside the station platform where they place their little traveling bags and get to know each other's names.
Zollamtssteg Bridge
The first sightseeing place that they go to, or it could actually have been just a place they had to go through, is Zollamssteg Bridge. They start feeling a litte bit awkward that this is actually happening and verbalize such thoughts. Then, Jesse, in an attempt to ease the tension, and being the extrovert that he is, approaches two weird-looking Austrians to ask them about some places to see. He begins the conversation saying, "Excuse me? Excuse me? Sprechen Sie Englisch?"
The first one replies in a thick Austrian accent, "Jaa, of course".
And the second cracks a joke, "Do YOU speak German for a change?" Obviously, Jesse weirds this out and asks, "Uh, what?"
That's probably the worst joke I've heard in a while, eh.
Then the two guys go ahead and invite Jesse and Céline to their play, "Bring Me the Horns of William's Cow" which will take place at 21:30 on that day. One of them is playing the diseased touched-in-the-head Cow character. Something Albert Camus would have appreciated, I should say.
Jesse and Céline follow their enthusiasm by saying, "Right, right... 21:30".
Alt & Neu Music Shop
Céline and Jesse go inside the shop and pick Come Here by Kath Bloom, a song Céline recognizes. Jesse points at the listening booth he notices and asks her if she wanted to listen to the song with him. They play the song and they stand next to each other all the while Jesse awkwardly trying to get closer to Céline every time Kath sings "Come here".
Graveyard of the Unknown
As the name postulates, this graveyard is for the dead who left this loud world to their eternal peace nameless. Their stories and their backgrounds are unknown so, as Céline tells in the movie, they are washed in the Danube and then brought here to be buried.
The graveyard is faced by a small Catholic chapel which is still used to worshipping Jesus. The place is well taken care of and although the tired souls buried are nameless, some of them get to have some flowers or some Christmas decoration thingy as a tribute to their leave. Being there had such a spiritual aura, and of course it reminded me of death of its inevitiblity. These people had their own share of existence, struggles, emotions, feelings, thoughts and aspirations, and then there they are: buried dead, nameless.
After leaving, I have only thought about living my life to the extent and not wasting a moment not appreciating how beautiful the grace of life is... So cliché thing to say, but the feeling I had is undescribable... To die nameless? To be forgotten even by your relatives? To be visited by random strangers and awarded your share of flowers and tributes? To come and go as lightly as that? There's still good in this world.
Old Ferris Wheel
Céline and Jesse, after pondering death and its inevitebility in the aforementioned graveyard, go to Prater park to have some fun and ended up riding this giant wheel. Shit escalate quickly and Céline asks Jesse if he wanted to kiss her (what a strong independent woman, to all women reading this blog, be like that eh). Jesse closes his eyes like a kid and nods in affirmation. Céline takes the lead and wraps her hands around him and gives him a French kiss.
Lucky guy. He got the original product from its original producer!
After that, they hang out a little in Prater and discuss their parents' generations and how hard it's been for them to rise them and stuff.
Kleines Café
Jesse gets all rational about this and blames Céline for taking what the fortune teller says seriously, and most importantly, to give her money for the bullshit she told them. He teases her for being such an emotional imaginative being and says that he would never believe a word such charlatan says.
The café is as small as "kleines" (German for small) could get. By the time I got there, it was full of people who stared at me for being a weird tourist coming to such a regular coffee, so I figured it'd be pretty awkward to start taking pictures of them and simply left.
Catholic Church Maria am Gestade
Our love birds then hang out for a while before they stumble upon this church.
By the time I got there, it was a Sunday afternoon, so people were having their mass, but what astonished me is that they were French?
Anyways, they get inside the church and Céline starts reflecting on how one church is the same place for so many lost people's happiness and sorrow, and how they come here seeking answers. Then Jesse tells a story of how he was once driving with his friend somewhere in the US when they stop by a homeless person. His friend waves a 100-dollar bill and asks the homeless, "Do you believe in God?"
The homeless buffers for a few seconds and then responds, "Yes, I do".
His friend replies with a cold, "Wrong answer," and drives off.
It gave Céline a good laughter and then they go out of the church and head to the next destination.
This is where Ethan and Julie sat (the front raw).
The Danube Canal
Then they take a walk along the canal of the one and only Danube and are stopped by a poet who asks them to give them a word which he would use to write a poem for them and if they liked it, they can give him as many euros as they see fit.
Céline and Jesse decide to give him the word, "Milkshake" because they have just discussed how Jesse acted like a little kid passing by an ice-cream store crying because his mother didn't buy him milkshake around the fortune teller earlier in the movie. He wasn't the center of attention in that scene, so she teases him for being an attention whore.
But the poet, however, nails it.
"Daydream delusion
limousine eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
drop a tear in my
wineglass
Look at those big eyes on your face
see what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milk shakes
I’m a delusion angel
I’m a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
don’t want you to guess
anymore
You have no idea where I came from
we have no idea where
we’re going
Lodged in life
like branches in a river
flowing downstream
caught in the current
I’ll carry you you carry me
that’s how it could be
don’t you know me
don’t you know me by now"
As with the fortune teller episode, Jesse staunchly believes that he has the same poem and he simply plugs the word the tourists give him and voilà, you've got such a sensational poem! Such thought is left to the viewer to decide its validity, and I'm honestly siding with Jesse on this one. This is not the Renaissance, people. You can't just improvise a poem from a word.
Arena Night Club
And then the wanderers' legs take them to a typical Austrian night club in the outskirts of the city. Although the menu was in German and everyone talked in Deutsch, the night club had this American vibe going on. A typical bar with a small space for the people to operate in.The bartender looked like these guys from the US who have a thug head wrap, large morphology, in their mid-40s, a thick white beard, and ride those huge fuck-off motorcycles. There were a few people who just sat there motionless drinking their beer and probably pondering about the meaning of life.
I first got to the club at 13:00 or thereabouts, but it was obviously closed because it's called "NIGHT" club for a reason. Silly me. So I had to go back to it later at 22:00 and it was open.
I wanted to play pinball just like Jesse and Céline did, but the machine was unfortunately removed and there was a baby foot ball machine there instead which was already occuppied by some guys having fun.
This is the part of the story where Céline and Jesse disclose to each other their relationship history and start insulting their exes for being uncaring, alcoholic, ugly and much more. Céline's exes had it rougher than Jesse's. She also expressed her anger at beating the pinball machine whenever the ball fell right through the sticks and screamed a few times, "Merde!" in French, meaning, "Shit!"
There was also sadly no performance the night I visited the club, but it is important to mention that there is a building which looks that has been recently built for the purpose of holding concerts. It was loud alright, and by the time I finished sticking around the club, a bunch of people came out of it, still sober (weird, cuz they sounded so loud) and went on with their night.
The stairs and the mysterious street in Vienna
Alright, I have to mention that this paritcular place is my favourite out all of the ones I visited. It is situated right in the heart of the city and it reminded me a lot of the narrow streets I became familiair with in the Old Medina of Tunis.
This is the street where they casually walked in and talked about gender-related issues such as women wanting to destroy men but are unable to and that men have the power to do so. The two characters obviously manifest some strong opposite perspectives on the social dynamics between the sexes and the conversation ends up with Céline dismissing the topic and suggesting that they talk about something else (typical feminist in love).
Café Sperl
The next destination in the movie is Café Sperl, a pretty famous place and was suprised when I saw the long line of tourists and Austrians alike, waiting to get in and warm their tummies with a hot coffee and some Sachertorte.
Céline gently smiles and nods and says, "Pick up the phone!"
That's when he got in character and also faked a phone grip and answered.
Céline begins, "Allo? Vannie, c'est Céline. Comment ça va?"
And Jesse answers with the little bit of French that he knows, "ça va bien, et toi?"
And then she goes on talking in French which was halted by Jesse telling her that he's been working on his English lately and would like to practice some.
Céline starts telling her friend (Jesse) how she met this American guy and how she thinks he's so cute but still afraid of her because she mentioned how she would kill her husband and so on.
Jesse jokingly says that he's probably not scared of her and is crazy about her, and that she's crazy to get off the train with a guy she's just randomly met.
Then Céline hangs the phone and Jesse picks it up and also fakes a phone conversation with his friend Frank.
Céline deepens her soft voice and fakes an American accent and picks up then says," Hi, dude, what's up?" which gets a good laughter from Jesse.
This is the table at which they have probably sat. It was busy just a few minutes before taking the picture, yet the café in the movie sounded so calm and peaceful. Probably staged that everyone should just move their lips as if they were having a conversation. How awkward it must have been.
Alertina Square
The next destination in the movie is Albertina Square, a very beautiful place which was not full of tourists as I have expected. I got there in nighttime so my replica picture was almost perfect. It only missed a Céline and Jesse sitting on the fence.
On this place, they start reflecting on this little journey and its certain ending, how they're owning their time and living the moment, and how by the next day, they're returning to their normal selves and will probably be missing the magic of the night. Jesse caresses her golden hair in reassurance and gets more of her lips, and they both obviously love it.
The mysterious windows
After that scene, they head to Roxy Club and get a bottle of wine, then they go to the park where, after a short overthinking from Céline's part, they have a passionate sex on the grass under the moonlight.
They slept a few hours and then it's dawn and they both realize that it's a matter of a good dozens of minutes until they say goodbye to each other once and for all. But on their last few minutes, they pass by two mysterious windows out of which there was a beautiful stream oh harmonious notes played from a harpischord.
They slept a few hours and then it's dawn and they both realize that it's a matter of a good dozens of minutes until they say goodbye to each other once and for all. But on their last few minutes, they pass by two mysterious windows out of which there was a beautiful stream oh harmonious notes played from a harpischord.
I got there late at night, and when I reached the two windows, there was an Austrian guy probably in his mid-40s going inside the door right next to the two windows with his kids. I was BLOWN AWAY and immediattely assumed that he lives there. So I got very enthusiastic and say, "Tut mir leid! Tut mir leid! Do you live here?"
He turns to me before going inside of his house and gracefully smiles and tells me, "No, I live right next doors".
"Oh, so you can't open the door to see the room of these two windows?"
"Oh, unfortunately not. You're here because this place was used for a movie, correct?"
"That is correct!" I said almost instantly, "It's called Before Sunrise!"
"Oh well, the basement is not turned into a cyclist shop; there is no harpischord inside or anything artistic. It's just full of broken bicycles and a lot of wheels. I can't open you the door because it's obviously no my property. I'm so sorry!"
And then we kept talking about the movie for a while and I showed him a magic trick for being a nice human and his kids and then went on my way. What a lovely coincidence! Close enough!
There you go folks! This has been my little journey that I've partaken chasing the locations in which Before Sunrise was shot, and it has been so magical.
Of course I didn't follow the order in which they appeared on the movie in real life, I was rather more pragmatic when it came to that. I made sure to visit places that are in the same perimiter everyday for 3 days and it's been so magical and beautiful beyond words. Just the realization that Ethan Hawke and Julie Deply along with their shooting crew were right there 23 years ago, moving the equipment and staging the movie in every locations, thus creating the most delicate romantic movie in the history of TV was so exhilirating and it gave me a real life feeling to the movie. What a sensational experience.
damn me silly dreams are coming true <3 <3
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