Review of Brief Encounter (1945) by Yury M — 17 Apr 2008
Laura Jesson "I wish you'd stop talking. I wish you'd stop prying and trying to find things out. I wish you were dead - no I don't mean that. That was silly and unkind. But I wish you'd stop talking.".
Brief Encounter is one of the earlier films by David Lean. It is a quiet movie that he made before his spectacular Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago. The movie is about a marital affair. It is as honest to the issue as a movie could be in 1945. One of the biggest and heaviest images of the movie is the trains. A lot of the story takes place at a train station; the affair itself begins and ends at the train station. Trains are representing a lot of thing here - change, fate, sex (as trains often did in classic American films) and finally suicide, that is the conclusion of another study on infidelity - Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
The movie features great acting (Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard), nice black-and-white cinematography, beautiful and moving music by Rachmaninov (another stylistic allusion to Anna Karenina). All in all this is a great example of a classic British film that might not be as relevant or controversial as it was in its time, but still is highly enjoyable for its nostalgic and somewhat naive story development.
This review of Brief Encounter (1945) was written by Yury M on 17 Apr 2008.
Brief Encounter has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
