Review of Brief Encounter (1945) by Tans D — 22 Dec 2008
I may very well love the idea of this movie, now, more than the execution. I fairly swooned at the naked longing and open emotionalism the first time I saw it, but the most recent screening has left me irritated with the insistence and self-congratulation of its voice-over narration.
And more than Coward's fondness for his own prose (and Lean's unfortunate--perhaps coerced?--deference to it), the real shame of the voice-over is the way it makes obvious and plainly stated what Celia Johnson's extraordinary performance makes resonantly clear in her big, expressive eyes.
In fact, this might have been a better film in the silent era, a verdict I suspect Wong Kar Wai shares; as a kind of remake of "Brief Encounter," "In the Mood for Love" is as close as the cinema gets to silent these days, and gloriously so.
This review of Brief Encounter (1945) was written by Tans D on 22 Dec 2008.
Brief Encounter has generally received very positive reviews.
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