It has been a particularly busy and unpredictable week, so I confess that I have failed in sticking to my unifying theme for the week. Last night, Katharine and I braved the subzero cold to venture out to the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. Their current exhibition is Steampunk Art, which combines modern technology with Victorian-style gadgets. While we didn't have the opportunity to take a look at the exhibition (I plan to come back this coming week), we were treated to a FREE (hooray!) viewing of Brief Encounter, a 1945 British film about an unexpected love affair between a suburban housewife and a doctor who meet at a train station.
Before I delve into my thoughts on the film, I'd like to say that the entire experience was very lovely. We arrived a bit early and got to watch a 1930s documentary on...actually I am not sure what the point of it was. It was basically a 20-minute film on how trains are the integral element of mail deliveryin the UK. I mean, I got to learn about all kinds of funky contraptions used to collect and drop off mail without the trains stopping at any stations, but I really didn't see the point of it. Perhaps, this was due to the fact that I couldn't understand a lick of the Midlands accent. I was quite surprised at the random lack of precision in dropping off bags of mail at each station – some toothless guy would just count the seconds on his fingers before sticking his head out to double-check that they were about to reach a certain station, before the bags were lowered and eventually dropped off. I am surprised no one got decapitated in the movie – it looked fairly lacking in the health and safety department.
The documentary was an interesting choice before the main feature. But my general love for trains and railroad systems left me fairly satisfied with this hodge podge documentary. And now it was time for Brief Encounter.
I have heard quite a bit about this movie (well, the fact that it is systematically ranked in the top hundred British movies has something to do with it) and always assumed that it would be incredibly sad and romantic. I found Brief Encounter incredibly realistic and poignantly relevant even today. It tells a very honest story about an emotional affair and the growing, and overwhelming, feelings that accompany it. The internal struggle that Laura, the heroine, undergoes throughout the duration of her affair is a conscious reflection of our often tumultuous and unbridled emotions. While the movie is often described as one about a suburban wife's violent experience with real love, contrasted against her familiar and comfortable marriage, I think that her experience was not necessarily love, but a very deep connection to another person. I agree that her experience was violent, especially taking into account the way that her companion, Alec, pursued her and convinced her of their feelings. I almost saw a cruelty in his admission of his love for Laura and his subsequent request for reciprocity. Here is a clever and passionate man. He can clearly see the way that this woman feels about him, along with the feelings of guilt that accompany those. And yet, he pressures her ever so slightly to submit, to confess, to share herself. I don't know. Despite Laura's evident indecision throughout the film, she is by far the stronger of the two. Alec never offers her any alternative to their encounters. He doesn't intend to leave his wife or for Laura to leave her husband. He embraces his emotions and drags Laura with him. But she has to stop herself because the guilt and the lies that she has to concoct in order to prevent her husband from finding out about this affair are too much and she realises that there is no future for her and Alec. She is the one who stands in the way of the two consummating their affair. She is also the one left behind when Alec decides to leave England for South Africa. Perhaps there is a side to Alec's story that we don't see because the story is told as Laura's imaginary confession to her husband and we are in essence situated to be more sympathetic to her experience. I particularly like the last scene of the film, where Laura's husband takes her into his arms when he becomes aware of the fact that she is clearly unsettled. Her breakdown in his arms can be interpreted as either her admission of the loss of her lover (remember, she did almost commit suicide shortly following his departure at the train station) or the relief of having survived such an affair only to end up in the arms of her husband. And though I don't think that her feelings for Alec were true love – (how could they be? They only spent one day a week together for about six weeks)- I do think that Laura experienced a real loss, a loss brought on by the fact that she bared herself so passionately and so briefly. I am so glad that movies like this exist. These are movies that let us glimpse the reality of our own lives (with better cinematography and, usually, better writing) without the needless happy endings.
