I was sitting outside Kleines Café with my hand warming on a particularly frothy cappuccino mug when two ladies asked to occupy the two empty seats at my table.
‘Of course, it’s a little busy.’ I said, with an open palm directed at the green metal chairs opposite. Granted, the sunny September weather was enough to draw any number of locals and tourists to a bar terrace at lunchtime. However, the snippets of dialogue I’d overheard during the last five minutes confirmed my suspicion: almost everyone sitting outside the café was here because of its appearance as a filming location in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise.
Including, it turned out, my new tablemates. They asked me to take their photo in front of the minty green facade with ‘Cash only! No cards!’ scrawled in chalk. ‘The bar hasn’t changed at all, has it?’ one said to the other.
No, I silently agreed. The city of Vienna and the universal themes of Before Sunrise haven’t changed in the 30 years since its release in 1995.
Strangers in a Strange Land
Linklater was inspired to write and direct Before Sunrise after his real-life encounter with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt in Philadelphia in 1989. He spent the entire night conversing about various personal topics with a person he had just met in a toy store.
Before Sunrise might be entirely fictional, but its roots in happenstance, chance meetings, and fate are evident.
The film follows American Jesse (Ethan Hawke), who is travelling on a train from Budapest to Vienna. He starts chatting to a French woman named Céline (Julie Delpy). The strangers spend the night together exploring Vienna before he continues his journey to Madrid Airport and she heads home to Paris.
It just so happens that the day they meet—June 16th—is also Bloomsday. This is the same date (albeit 90 years earlier) when James Joyce’s epic novel Ulysses, which follows a day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom, is set.
Joyce set his novel on June 16th, 1904, the day he and his future wife, Nora Barnacle, had their first date. This auspicious, romantic date was very intentional.
What transpires over Before Sunrise‘s 100-minute runtime is an ever-evolving intimate relationship. The limited time, their youthful spontaneity, and anonymity they both have by being ‘strangers in a strange land’ extend the perfect setting for a deep connection free of promises or expectations.
Why Vienna?
Linklater has said that he considered setting Before Sunrise in Philadelphia, the place that inspired the movie’s concept. He also wrote earlier drafts in San Antonio, Texas—Linklater’s home state.
However, visiting Vienna for a film festival sealed the deal for Linklater. The availability of film subsidies in Europe didn’t hurt either.
Vienna, if you didn’t know, is the Austrian capital on the storied Danube River. Once the capital of the Habsburg Empire, it’s home to several opulent palaces and has birthed a string of famous composers. More than 20% of the city was destroyed in World War II (watch 1949’s The Third Man to see for yourself). But today, it consistently ranks as one of the top liveable cities in the world.
Wide green spaces, historic cafés, a charming and compact city centre, and an abundance of art and cultural hubs are just some reasons why tourists and migrants flock to this beautiful city.
Although I’ve never visited San Antonio, I’ve spent many months in the US. I struggle to think of more than a handful of cities where the events of Before Sunrise could unfold without the protagonists hailing taxis as soon as they ran out of sidewalks. The US is not known for its walkable cities, and there’s not much to say about the country’s sparse train network.
Before Sunrise would be less of a travelogue and more like a trafficlogue.
Embalmed Filming Locations
I enjoy hunting for all filming locations, whether cinematic back alleys or bridges, but it’s a passion that often leads to disappointment. Boarded-up shopfronts and quirky pubs that have been bulldozed for apartment complexes are often the results of my research.
However, I was particularly surprised when researching and subsequently following in Jesse and Céline’s footsteps.
At my count, there are at least 25 different filming locations around Vienna in Before Sunrise. How many do you think are still there, 30 years after the film’s release?
Every. Single. One. (Almost).
There are some locations where you would expect little to have changed in 30 years. Three decades, for a city as historic as Vienna, is a mere grain in the sands of time. The Statue von Erzherzog Albrecht, where Céline lies in Jesse’s lap before their parting, has been a permanent fixture outside the Albertina Museum since 1899.
Riding the Riesenrad Ferris Wheel in Prater Amusement Park is where the two lovers share their first kiss. Funfair rides come and go, but Vienna is unlikely to let the oldest Ferris Wheel in the world succumb to rust. Its cogs have been churning since 1897, after all.
The steel green Zollamtssteg bridge, where the pair run into two enthusiastic theatre geeks, is still green and still standing. What about the Friedhof der Namenlosen, the Cemetery of the Nameless, where Céline takes Jesse for a romantic graveyard stroll? The tragic inhabitants are unsurprisingly still deceased and still unnamed.
Continuing the Jesse and Céline Walking Tour
Other locations that you might be more surprised to see alive and kicking are businesses. Specifically, the cafés and bars where Jesse and Céline become more intoxicated, less inhibited, and urge to keep their time together ticking over.
Kleines Café, as I mentioned, still welcomes coffee drinkers during the day and beer chuggers at night. Their reluctance to accept credit card payments is something of a time warp, too. Café Sperl, a historic Viennese café where Jesse and Céline play-act phone calls with loved ones, has the same faded pink flowery upholstery. The daily newspaper on the counters also adds a touch of 20th-century charm. (Order their apple strudel. It’s the perfect pick-me-up.)
Even the bars—Arena Café, where Linklater makes a cameo, and The Roxy—are still open as late-night music venues. The former is an ex-slaughterhouse turned underground club, the latter a no-frills hip-hop dance bar.
Let’s not forget Alt & Neu Records, the record store where Jesse and Céline bond when they have to occupy a small listening booth. Sadly, I didn’t get to head inside the record store during my trip to Vienna. Not because it was closed, but because I missed their narrow weekend opening times.
I will be honest and say there is one filming location that has not stood the test of time. Or, rather, floated it. Céline and Jesse climb aboard a moored bar-restaurant in the Donaukanal, which is no longer there. However, the Donaukanal is still where they meet the spontaneous poet and is a cool, scenic place for a quiet walk on a sunny day.
Travel Romance
I visited Vienna as a solo traveller. While this is my usual method of travel, it felt odd following the trail of Céline and Jesse by myself. Even if sitting in a Viennese coffee shop or riding a Ferris Wheel isn’t inherently romantic, Before Sunrise certainly turned them into things to do for two.
But then I realised that Jesse and Céline were also travelling alone, at first.
Before Sunrise‘s lasting impact is partly due to the ‘holiday romance’ aspect. If a traveller can strike up a conversation with a beautiful stranger with curtain bangs and a leather jacket or blonde curls, surely you can, right?
It sure beats crashing out in your hotel room at 6:00 PM and swiping through dating apps.
And that’s the other side of the wistful coin. 30 years on, viewers feel intense nostalgia for that golden era, the mid-1990s. No swapping of Instagram handles and no earphones to block awkward attempts at conversation.
Before Sunrise is not so much a movie as it is a time capsule, a Polaroid taken in magic hour light. One that hopeless romantics will stick on their fridge with a souvenir magnet and rewatch whenever they go through a break-up, longing to find a connection like Jesse and Céline down a cobblestone street in the Old World someday.
Stranger Than Fiction
I’m one to talk. While I didn’t meet my American partner on a train in Vienna, I did meet him in a hostel in Florence.
I was there celebrating my 30th birthday as I wanted to stay in ‘a room with a view’ ala the E.M. Forster novel and 1985 movie. I’m British, which isn’t exactly as cool as being French. Luckily, some Americans don’t seem to understand the difference.
But that was a few months after I visited Vienna.
I was a hopeless romantic, just like the two ladies sitting at my table outside Kleines Café, and the dozens of other Before Sunrise fans I know. There were, however, two people in Vienna that weekend who were immune to the charm. Overhearing our conversation from the table next to mine, they asked why the café was famous. I told them, and they promptly googled the movie.
‘It has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score,’ I added, knowing that fact would intrigue even the casual movie fan. Eyebrows were raised, but they said no more.
I returned to my coffee and, whether they thought I couldn’t overhear or just didn’t care, one said to the other, ‘Looks a bit boring.’
I smiled, the froth of my cappuccino catching on my top lip. They didn’t get it. They wouldn’t get it, many never do. I’m just glad I never brought up the sequels, Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), too. If you don’t enjoy watching two lovers talking for 90+ minutes in Vienna, a change of locale won’t make much difference.
