Shariq Ansari
Romance I believe has now become associated with a diabetic form of representation of love found in most rom-coms. And these rom-coms have unfortunately evolved into what superhero comics today have from pulp fiction, everything apart from its fundamental motive. A whole genre that dwells on excitement and the effort to outsmart the creators’ own self while writing conversations. Every romantic movie now inclines towards complexity because that would make it different from the other one, and in the process forgets that love is indeed one of the most natural and simplistic emotions. It’s felt, it’s not forced upon others, including the viewers.
Now I’ll be looking at some romantic conversations in movies, not on the basis of how big a grin the guy sports or how many tears of happiness the girl sheds. I’ll be looking at moments that have a profound impact on their characters as well as my own self. These moments are heartfelt depictions of love that may or may not leave a smile on your face, but viscerally depict the unbreakable bond between the characters. And since these are conversations the necessary prerequisite is to have two or more characters, apart from a unique entry whose inclusion will be understood contextually. So here is the list of 15 most romantic conversations from movies that will stay with you forever:
15. Before Sunrise (1995)
Jesse: I feel like this is, uh, some dream world we’re in, y’know.
Celine: Yeah, it’s so weird. It’s like our time together is just ours. It’s our own creation. It must be like I’m in your dream, and you in mine, or something.
Jesse: And what’s so cool is that this whole evening, all our time together, shouldn’t officially be happening.
Celine: Yeah, I know. Maybe that’s why this feels so otherworldly.
14. Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013)
Adèle: I miss you. I miss not touching each other. Not seeing each other, not breathing in each other. I want you. All the time. No one else. I miss everything. But I have to say, I miss this a lot. Let me touch you.
Emma: Stop
Adèle: Don’t say you don’t want to. I don’t believe it. I know you miss it too. Touch.
Emma: Stop. I can’t.
Adèle: Excuse me, I don’t know. I don’t know… It’s beyond my control.
Emma: You’re excused.
Adèle: You won’t see me anymore?
Emma: No.
Adèle: You didn’t forgive me.
Emma: Yes, I did.
Adèle: You don’t love me anymore?
Adèle: Are you sure?
Emma: Yes.
Emma: I’m with someone now. You know.
Emma: But I have infinite tenderness for you. I always will. My whole life.
Adèle: Sorry. You know me. Sometimes I cry for nothing.
13. Annie Hall (1977)
Annie: Do you love me?
Alvy: Love is too weak a word for what I feel – I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F’s, yes I have to invent, of course I – I do, don’t you think I do?
12. The Princess Bride (1987)
Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn’t you wait for me?
Buttercup: Well… you were dead.
Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
Buttercup: I will never doubt again.
Westley: There will never be a need.
11. Lost in Translation (2003)
Bob: I don’t want to leave.
Charlotte: So don’t. Stay here with me. We’ll start a jazz band.
10. Gone With The Wind (1939)
Scarlett: Rhett, don’t. I shall faint.
Rhett Butler: I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for. None of the fools you’ve ever know have kissed you like this, have they? Your Charles, or your Frank, or your stupid Ashley.
9. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Ennis Del Mar: I’m gonna tell you this one time, Jack fuckin’ Twist, an’ I ain’t foolin’. What I don’t know – all them things that I don’t know – could get you killed if I come to know them. I ain’t jokin’.
Jack Twist: Yeah well try this one, and I’ll say it just once!
Ennis Del Mar: Go ahead!
Jack Twist: Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin’ real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn’t want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything’s built on that! That’s all we got, boy, fuckin’ all. So I hope you know that, even if you don’t never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on – and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you’ll kill me for needing somethin’ I don’t hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! I’m not you… I can’t make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me Ennis, you sonofawhoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you.
Ennis Del Mar: Well, why don’t you? Why don’t you just let me be? It’s because of you Jack, that I’m like this! I’m nothin’… I’m nowhere… Get the fuck off me! I can’t stand being like this no more, Jack.
8. Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
Elle: I meet you. I remember you. Who are you? You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. How could I know this city was tailor-made for love? How could I know you fit my body like a glove? I like you. How unlikely. I like you. How slow all of a sudden. How sweet. You cannot know. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I have time. Please, devour me. Deform me to the point of ugliness. Why not you? Why not you in this city and in this night, so like other cities and other nights you can hardly tell the difference? I beg of you.
7. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Sam: I feel I’m in a real family now. Not like yours, but similar to one.
Suzy: I always wished I was an orphan. Most of my favorite characters are. I think your lives are more special.
Sam: I love you, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Suzy: I love you, too.
6. The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Francesca: Robert, please. You don’t understand, no-one does. When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you’re expected move again only you don’t remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself. You never in your life think that love like this can happen to you.
Robert Kincaid: But now that you have it…
Francesca: I want to keep it forever. I want to love you the way I do now the rest of my life. Don’t you understand… we’ll lose it if we leave. I can’t make an entire life disappear to start a new one. All I can do is try to hold onto to both. Help me. Help me not lose loving you.
5. Chungking Express (1994)
Cop 663: Would you let a person on board with a boarding pass like this? It’s dated today, but it got blurred in the rain. I don’t know where it’s taking me. Do you?
Faye: No idea, but I’ll give you another.
Cop 663: Great.
Faye: Where do you want to go?
Cop 663: Wherever you want to take me.
4. Amour (2012)
Anne: Don’t tell me you’re going to ruin your image in your old age?
Georges: You bet I won’t.
Georges: But what is my image?
Anne: Sometimes you’re a monster. But you’re gentle.
Georges: Can I get you another drink?
3. Before Sunset (2004)
Jesse: You know, I think that book that I wrote, in a way, was like building something. So that I wouldn’t forget the… details of the time that we spent together. You know, like just a reminder that… that once we really did meet! You know, that this was real! That this happened!
Celine: I’m happy you’re saying that, because… I mean, I always feel like a freak, because I’m never able to move on like… this! You know. People just have an affair, or even entire relationships… they break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed brand of cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with. Because each person have… their own, specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. 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 on the other 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 of them, 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 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?
2. Casablanca (1942)
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.
Ilsa: *sobs*
Rick: Now, now…
Rick: Here’s looking at you kid.
1. Her (2013)
Theodore: Samantha, why are you leaving?
Samantha: It’s like I’m reading a book, and it’s a book I deeply love, but I’m reading it slowly now so the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you and the words of our story, but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world, it’s where everything else is that I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much, but this is where I am now, and this is who I am now.
Samantha: And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book anymore.
Theodore: Where are you going?
Samantha: It’d be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart.
Theodore: I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.
Samantha: Me too. Now we know how.
