starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard
directed by David Lean
86 minutes
Laura Jesson and Alec Harvey meet by chance in the Milford train station. She has something caught in her eye. He gets it out. They meet a second time by chance. They both pass through the Milford train station every Thursday although they travel in from opposite directions to get there. Both are married to others. Both have children.
Over the period of a few weeks they continue to meet, go to lunch together, go to the movies, and spend time together. They lie to their loved ones in order to keep meeting and spending time together. Their physical infidelity goes no further than rare kisses but their emotional infidelity runs much deeper.
They both think about ending the relationship but feel themselves drawn to one another. Ultimately it is a job offer that Alec receives in South Africa that ends their relationship.
This is the second English-language film I have watched this year that did not originate from the United States. I hope to watch a few more this year.
This is a movie of degrees. I don't see the point of going into detail about how the story or their relationship develops. It is about two people who enter into a forbidden relationship and how they try to enjoy what they have discovered while living with the weight of doing something which they know is wrong on many levels. The movie for the most part focuses on them and their relationship and to a much lesser degree on their relationships with others. The story is narrated by Laura. Her husband and children are shown. Alec's are not.
Laura and Alec are both in their thirties. I think this is worth mentioning. This is not a movie about first love but one about two people approaching middle age or maybe what was middle age to many people in the 1940s.
I find the very ending of the movie to be a bit of a false flag. The real end of Laura and Alex's story happens just before that and was also shown at the beginning of the movie. I am referring to the scene where Laura and Alec's last moments together are ruined by a chance encounter with someone she knows. No amount of consolation from Laura's husband can wipe clean the slate that she and Alex filled with memories that will probably be with her forever. I think I would have rated the movie higher if it had not included that final moment with her husband.
This film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards but did not win any. Celia Johnson was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role. David Lean was nominated for Best Director. Lean was also part of the team that wrote the screenplay which was nominated for Best Screenplay. These were the first two of Lean's eleven Academy Award nominations.
The more I think about the movie the more I like it. It kind of reminds me (in one sense) of something from the Twilight Zone. Two people from different worlds meet at a crossing point between their worlds. They can't enter one another's lives without causing major disruptions but they enjoy the time they share at the crossing point. They explore the possibility of developing a stronger bond but other forces push them apart. One day their relationship ends abruptly without a chance for them to say goodbye.
This movie makes me think of In the Mood for Love (2000). I haven't investigated but I've got to believe that In the Mood for Love must have been influenced in some way by Brief Encounter. The story isn't the same but there are some similarities between them.
I'm having second thoughts about downgrading this movie on account of the last scene. There's enough going on here to make me think that scene too could be a hallucination.
---
I watched the movie a second time (a few days later) with the commentary track and then watched the last 15 minutes of the movie a third time, without the commentary track. I still don't like the inclusion of the final scene.
The commentary track on the Criterion Collection DVD was good but not great. I liked the parts where the commenter talked about how the story changed from the play to the film. I wasn't crazy about the amount of detail that he went into about the backgrounds of the actors in the movie. It got to feel a bit like filler after a point.
I borrowed the DVD of Brief Encounter from the library. I felt as I finished watching the end for the third time that there was a parallel of sorts between me getting ready to return the movie, not aware if or when I will see it again, and the events at the train station at the end of the movie. I think that made me like the movie a little more.
Also worth noting, nothing in the second watch or third watch of the last 15 minutes made me think that I was wrong to reference the Twilight Zone when talking about Brief Encounter. Laura is caught between two worlds briefly. Her feelings for Alec pull her toward him but it isn't to be and it ends very abruptly, in a less than ideal way. That feels very Twilight Zone to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment