On watching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset years later:
What’s amazing about these movies is that because they’re set nine years apart they thoroughly embody this passage of time and maturation that we all go through, while at the same time retaining that essential magic between Jesse and Celine. Life moves on, we change, we age, and yet something essential remains.
And that’s the amazing thing about art. These movies haven’t changed at all since I saw them last, that essence hasn’t moved a bit. But I have changed, the world has changed, and how we all respond to works of art evolves.
The movies may be the same but they mean something different than they used to and they’ll continue to change while remaining exactly the same.
But no matter what happens I’m sure my feelings about these movies, so bound up with my own personal history, will continue to change as I revisit them at different stages in life.
That’s the beauty of stories. They change with us and always give us something new.