Friday, February 10, 2006

BRIEF ENCOUNTER - pure class

86 minutes of pure cinematic class, and how lucky we are that it is back on UK screens across the UK for your viewing pleasure on Valentine's Day. In some ways, this is rather an odd choice for a date movie as it is not the usual self-indulgent mush where boy meets girl, they fall in love and they end up together. Rather, this is a story of unconsummated love. Fans of Wong Kar Wei's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, will recognise the potent mixture of melancholy and moral correctness.


The film is based on a short story by that acerbic wit, Noel Coward - the last person we can accuse of being a delusional romantic. He tells us about Laura and Alec, both married to good but rather stiff people, who meet by chance at a railway station. They start to meet every Thursday and fall in love. But a combination of practical obstacles and old-fashioned respect for the married state prevents them from acting upon their passion. From such a simple but poignant tale, director David Lean creates one of the best-loved and most admired movies in British cinema history*. He perfectly evokes the "niceness" of small-town British life as well as the complete impossibility of conducting a clandestine relationship in such a community. The two lead actors - upon whom the movie rests almost entirely - are marvellous. And while their old-fashioned accents might sound odd to contemporary viewers at first, we are soon too engrossed in this quietly tragic affair to care about such superficialities.



BRIEF ENCOUNTER was originally released in 1946. David Lean won the Grand Prize at Cannes. Celia Johnson was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar but lost out to Olivia de Havilland in the soon-to-be-forgotten TO EACH, HIS OWN. It also lost the Best Directing and Best Screenplay Oscars to the also forgotten THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. It wasn't even nominated for Best Picture.

*And I have no doubt that part of the reason why Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto is played incessantly in UK concert halls is because it is featured heavily in this flick.

5 comments:

  1. Similar plot line: Falling in Love with Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep--in my opinion, an underappreciated gem of a movie.

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  2. thanks for the tip, Karen - I'll try and check Falling in Love out on DVD :-)

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  3. Can't you praise CELIA JOHNSON without knocking Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-winning performance in TO EACH HIS OWN? De Havilland earned that Oscar--that same year she drew excellent notices for her twin sister role in Siodmak's THE DARK MIRROR.

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  4. wOULD YOU KNOW WHERE TO GET THE PICTURE OF THE ORIGINAL POSTER FOR THIS MOVIE WHERE THE BABY IS SHOWN?
    A friend of mine is that baby and his family has been looking for that picture.
    dorespage@yahoo.com

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  5. This is one of the greatest films of all time, no doubt about it. Celia Johnson gave a worldclass performance and definitely should have won the oscar for Brief Encounter. Olivia DeHavilland's turn came with The Heiress, which she deserved. I adore this film to death!

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