weeklymoviesandsongs:

Celine: I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with. Because each person have… you know, specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I haven’t fully recovered. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved, because… It hurts too much! Even getting laid! I actually don’t do that… I will miss of the person the most mundane things. Like I’m obsessed with little things. Maybe I’m crazy, but… When I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why… I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk, or… ants, crossing the road… the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk… Little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each other, that move me, and that I miss, and… will always miss. You can never replace anyone, because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details. Like I remember the way… your beard has a little bit of red in it. And how the sun was making it glow that… that morning, right before you left. I remember that, and… I missed it! I’m really crazy, right?

Jesse: All right, now I know for sure. You wanna know why I wrote that stupid book?

Celine: Why?

Jesse: So that you might come to a reading in Paris, and I go walk up to you and ask: "Where the fuck were you?“

Celine: No, you think I’d be here today?

Jesse: I’m serious, I think I… I wrote it, in a way, to try to find you.

Celine: Ok, that’s… I know that’s not true, but that’s sweet of you to say it.

Jesse: I think it is true. What do you think the chances were of us ever meeting again?

Celine: After that December, I’d say almost zero. If we’re not real, anyway, right? We’re just… characters in that old lady’s dream. She’s on her death bed, fantasizing about her youth… So, of course we have to meet again!

Jesse: Oh, God! Why weren’t you there in Vienna?

Celine: I told you why!

Jesse: Well, I know why, I just… I wish you would’ve been! Our lives might have been so much different!

Celine: You think so?

Jesse: I actually do…

Celine: Maybe not, maybe we would have hated each other, eventually.

Jesse: Oh, what, like we hate each other now?

Celine: No, maybe we’re… we’re only good at… brief encounters, walking around in European cities, in one climate!

Jesse: Oh, God, why didn’t we exchange phone numbers and stuff? Why didn’t we do that?

Celine: Because we were young and stupid?

Jesse: You think we still are?

Celine: I guess when you’re young… you just believe… there’ll be many people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life you only realize it only happens a few times.

Jesse: Yeah, you can screw it up! You know, misconnect…

Celine: Well, the past is the past. It was meant to be that way.

Jesse: Yeah, you really believe that? That everything is faded?

Celine: Well, you know, the world might be less free than you think. 

Jesse: Yeah?

Celine: Yeah, when given this exact circumstances, that’s that will happen every time. Two part hydrogen, one part oxygen, you’ll get water every time.

Jesse: No, no… I mean, what if your grandmother had lived a week longer, you know? Or passed away a week earlier, days even, you know. Things might have been different, I believe that!

Celine: No, you can’t think like that.

Jesse: I mean… I know you shouldn't on most things, but… It’s just… On this one, it seemed like something was off! You know, I mean… In the months leading up to my wedding, ok, I was thinking about you, all the time. I mean, even on my way there… I’m in the car, and a buddy of mine is driving me downtown, and I’m staring at the window… and I think I see you. Not far from the church, right. Folding up an umbrella, and walking into a deli, on the corner of… 13th and Broadway. And I thought I was going crazy, you know? But now I think it probably was you…

Celine: I lived on 11th and Broadway.

Jesse: You see.

Celine: So, what is it like to be married. You haven’t talked much about that.

Before Sunset (2004)

dir: Richard Linklater