Brief Encounter (1945)
The jury is out on whether or not I've watched this before. I thought not - and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise in either this thread or
the Nöel Coward one - but my partner is convinced we've previously watched it together ( back in 2017 we did watch the
Tonight At 8:30 version with Joan Collins donning a grey wig and thick glasses to play the café owner, so perhaps it's all getting mixed up).
Having watched, I'm still feeling uncertain about having previously seen it. There is much that feels familiar but such is the case with Coward's work where rhythms and speech patterns and all that stiff upper lipped stuff recurs, and of course this particular film is so very well-known that one doesn't need to have watched it to recognise certain imagery, especially when it's been homaged (and lampooned) again and again.
I suppose the subject matter is rather risqué for 1945 (and no less so for the mid-Thirties when the play was first performed), but this is Coward's forte, and there's something almost comforting about it. The way the story is told, too, strikes me as quite innovative for the time. We begin almost at the end, and not only is the story in flashback, the narration is also essentially an inner soliloquy, as Laura thinks the confession she doesn't have the courage to say out loud to her husband.
Naturally, it's very poetic. Coward's trademark wit is quite restrained here (until it comes to the eccentric supporting players, that is, where there are some familiar-ish faces), but there's no lack of his human observation. Coward captures well how people operate, with juxtapositions between the visuals and what Laura is saying (more often than not "I didn't give it another thought") to create ambiguity around her assessment of the situation. Is she truly in denial of her own part in beginning and continuing the affair, or is she reframing things for her "confession" to convince her husband that she was a poor, naïve victim, pursued by a lecherous wolf? The latter is more likely, but even then there would be doubt around her full reasoning for doing so. Would it be (as she suggests) to spare her husband's feelings, or is it simply to absolve her of responsibility? I have my own ideas, but it's somewhat open to interpretation.
The use of Rachmaninoff throughout is wonderful, though at times I found myself distracted, with the Moderato section (
Movement I) making me think of
The Seven Year Itch (its use in that film becoming clear to me from
Brief Encounter), and the Adagio section
Movement II constantly reminding me of Eric Carmen's
All By Myself (listening to it here, I realise just how much of it Carmen used). And how plebeian both those associations make me feel.
The film looks great. There are nice shots of Regents Park and Buckinghamshire high streets doubling for Kent, and the indoor sets are great too, but the best scenes are those filmed outdoors at Carnforth Station for night shoots where the brickwork in the darkened underpass or the steam adding an almost gothic edge to the shadowy aesthetics create such atmosphere. The fashions are lovely: this is from a time when people still wore natty hats and got dressed up to leave the house (and sometimes to stay in it). And it's nice to be privy to the people-watching at the station from a time before everyone was glued to electronic devices. The traditional British (mis?)pronunciation of Nestlé made me a little nostalgic, as well. It's more than just a period piece, though. In all the right ways it felt quite contemporary.
