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Sunday November 10th 2024

Before Sunset | 2004

Before Sunset filming location: Le Cafe Pure,rue Jean Macé, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Jesse and Celine stop at the cafe: Le Pure Cafe, rue Jean Macé, Paris
Before Sunset poster

Richard Linklater revisits the characters from Before Sunrise, nine years on, as they meet up again in Paris. Where the previous film ended with a montage of its locations, this one reverses the process with a montage of the places that will be seen in the film.

Before Sunset filming location: Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bucherie, Paris
Before Sunset location: Celine arrives at the book-reading: Shakespeare and Company, rue de la Bucherie, Paris

▶ Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is publicising his book, This Time, about the night-long romance in Vienna at Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bucherie, between Petit Pont and Pont au Double (metro: St Michel), on the Left Bank of the Seine opposite Notre Dame (just a little east of the hotel from A Bout de Souffle). The bookshop crops up again in another Parisian romance, Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris.

Before Sunset filming location: rue Saint Julien le Pauvre, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine and Jesse begin their walk around the city: rue Saint Julien le Pauvre, Paris

▶ When Celine (Julie Delpy) turns up, they go for a walk but, despite the feel that the couple are simply being followed around the streets by a documentary crew, as in the previous film, the geography is deceptively tricky.

Before Sunset filming location: rue Galande, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine and Jesse continue their walk on the Left Bank: rue Galande, Paris

▶ From the riverfront, they walk southwest on rue Saint Julien le Pauvre through the studenty area north of the Sorbonne, and turn left into rue Galande, passing the Studio Galande cinema (a good place to catch an interactive showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – the cinema’s website helpfully catalogues the props you’ll need). So far so good.

Before Sunset filming location: rue des Jardins Saint-Paul, Paris, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: suddenly, they've crossed the river...: rue des Jardins Saint-Paul, Paris

▶ But in a single cut, they’re suddenly not only walking in the opposite direction, but they’ve leapt across the Seine and the Ile St Louis to rue des Jardins St-Paul toward the Marais district of the 4th arrondissement, at rue de l'Ave Maria (metro: Pont Marie).

Before Sunset filming location: rue Charlemagne, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine tells of her environmental work: rue Charlemagne, Paris

Incidentally, the covered passages on the right will take you into a series of quiet, interconnected courtyards known as Saint-Paul Village, housing dozens of classy antique stores.

▶ Heading north toward the rear of Église-St-Paul-St-Louis, the couple turns right into rue Charlemagne as Celine tells of her environmental work, and then through the tiny passageway of rue Eginhard to rue Saint-Paul.

Before Sunset filming location: rue Eginhard, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: they turn into the narrow passageway: rue Eginhard, Paris

▶ Another cut, virtually mid-sentence, finds them way to the east, in the 11th arrondissement, approaching a bar. It’s Le Pure Café, 14 rue Jean Macé at Impasse Franchemont (metro: Charonne) where, as they chat, they realise they were both in New York at the same time.

Before Sunset filming location: Le Cafe Pure,rue Jean Macé, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Jesse and Celine stop at the cafe: Le Pure Cafe, rue Jean Macé, Paris

▶ After this leaping about, it’s not too far south to avenue Daumesnil and the raised garden path to which Celine takes Jesse.

Before Sunset filming location: entrance to the Promenade Plantée, avenue Daumesnil, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine takes Jesse to the raised walkway: entrance to the Promenade Plantée, avenue Daumesnil, Paris

▶ This is the Coulée verte René-Dumont (Promenade Plantée), a peaceful 4.5 km linear park constructed atop the old Viaduc des Arts, running from Place de la Bastille to Bois de Vincennes. Celine and Jesse enter by the staircase on Avenue Daumesnil at Voie AA/12, in the 12th arrondissement (metro: Reuilly Diderot).

Before Sunset filming location: entrance to the Promenade Plantée, avenue Daumesnil, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine takes Jesse to the raised walkway: Promenade Plantée, avenue Daumesnil, Paris

Suddenly and conveniently, the pair arrive back on the Left Bank again, not too far from the Shakespeare bookshop where they started out.

▶ This time they’re just behind Notre Dame at Quai de la Tournelle, where they take the bateau mouche. You might recognise this as the spot where Jason Bourne gets his head down in the car when he first arrives in Paris in The Bourne Identity.

Before Sunset filming location: Quai de la Tournelle, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine and Jesse take the boat: Quai de la Tournelle, Paris

▶ With a car waiting at the next stop, Quai Henri IV on the Right Bank, Jesse offers to take Celine to her apartment and she helpfully gives her address as ' 18 passage des Petites-Ecuries'. Don’t be fooled. This is actually a complete fib.

Before Sunset filming location: Court de l’Étoile d’Or on the north side of rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris
Before Sunset filming location: Celine’s courtyard apartment: Court de l’Étoile d’Or on the north side of rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris

▶ Celine’s courtyard apartment is on Court de l’Étoile d’Or on the north side of rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, between Passage du Chantier and Cour des Trois Frères Although the other passages here contain shops and are usually open to the public, this particular one guards its privacy – gated and usually closed (metro: Ledru-Rollin).