“Before Sunrise” What is the philosophy of time and space created by Richard Linklater?

What Celine's smile means

The film ends with Celine's mysterious smile as she rides a train. Some viewers may be dissatisfied with the ending, which does not depict the ending of what happens to the two of them in a typical romantic movie. However, if you think about it the other way around, it also means that this work does not consider that to be an important point. In other words, what you want to draw has already been drawn. What is that? What does the smile in the last scene represent?

In their conversation, Celine expresses her fear of dying in the future. She sometimes has delusions that the time she is living now is actually just a recollection of when she was about to die when she became an old woman.

Human existence in time and space

In the final scene when the sun rises, the third movement of Bach's ` `Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord No. 1 BWV 1027 '' plays in a disproportionately solemn and gentle manner as the two of them visit Vienna. Various parts of the city are shown. However, the two of them are not there. Human beings are only temporary beings and cannot be omnipresent (exist everywhere). The two will return to America and France, spending the same amount of time in different places. And even after they grow old and pass away, the cityscape of Vienna will continue to look the same.

“Before Sunrise” (c)2017 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.

The fate of their love is not discussed (at least in this work), and they may never meet. But even if that is the case, is it really just an empty event? This encounter will have meaning if the two of them are brought together in the future, and meaningless if they are not. This way of thinking is similar to, for example, a person who believes in a certain religion thinking, ``If I go to paradise, my life will have meaning, but if I can't go there, it will be meaningless.''

Even if the two were not connected, it is an undeniable fact that they rode the same train and shared the same time and place. Just as the city of Vienna continues to exist even if the two men are no longer there, the "time" of the two men that has passed will also continue to exist even if Celine and the others are not there. Whether it brings some meaning to future circumstances or not, in fact, it is precisely because we do not know it that it can become something independent in our lives. You can feel this fact from the scenery of Vienna where the two disappeared.

She is having a hard time feeling that she is actually alive in the here and now. The reason for this is probably the fear of death mentioned above. This is because, for her, who does not believe in any particular religion, death means returning to nothing, and if she is living toward nothing, it is difficult to find meaning in it. That's why she says the moments before death are terrifying. Isn't this a common feeling among many atheists?

Regarding the paintings on Seurat's exhibition posters posted on street corners in Vienna, she said, ``Look, the environment is stronger than humans,'' and ``Humans are transient, fleeting.'' There, too, he talks about the fragility of human existence.

A philosophy that resists the fear of time