FACES OF AMERICAN CINEMA

Love in time

The essay deals with the issue of fictional representations of love relationships taking into account the different approaches of two authors concerning film time, based on Ante Peterlić’s remark that men’s actions, especially the ones with symbolic value such as the behaviour caused by love, are inseparable from the characteristics of film material and thereby inseparable from film time. The first two films under examination, Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) by Richard Linklater, represent an attempt of a realistic creation of the illusion of elaborating characters and plot in real time, whereas Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Michel Gondry, through the director’s emphasis on style astonishment and fantasticality as well as structural layering, represents a refusal of the imperative and characteristic of film material. Still, despite the almost opposite elaboration of film time, both authors do not have different views on the nature of love. On the contrary, they celebrate it as a result of the rational and irrational dynamics of complex human relations which has the power of somehow resisting the influence of real, and also of film time.

Karla Lončar