Brief Encounter

365 Films

Entry #89

Brief Encounter (1945)

Directed by David Lean

Sadly I do not have an epic account of my first awareness of David Lean and Noel Coward’s 1945 doomed romance Brief Encounter.  I believe it came down to a matter as simple as the half off bi-yearly Barnes and Noble Criterion sale and this movie looked interesting to me.  In keeping time with an entry two previous to this one, I will share with you all that I might have a slight predilection for the unrequited romance in cinema.  In fact all you have to tell me about Brief Encounter is that it’s about a couple who meet by chance in a smoky British rail-way station and I would have signed up no questions asked.  The reason I’m including it on this blog is because I instantly connected with it upon my initial viewing and it does something rather delicately that very few movies are ever capable of: it tells a small story in a grand manner without ever losing that precise focus.  Adapted from Noel Coward’s play (it’s really more of the novella version of a play, I guess a one-act? Help me out here theater people), Brief Encounter is about Laura Jesson and Dr. Alec Harvey, strangers both married to other people who have a brief, longing romance with one another only to eventually decide that succumbing to the whims of their desire will lead to their almost certain ruin.  I hope I didn’t spoil anything for you but the very structure of the film telegraphs this idea within about the first five minutes.  Told from Laura’s point of view as an imagined confession to her crossword puzzle solving husband, the story details her moment-to-moment emotional oscillations as she attempts to navigate these newfound feelings of passion through a society, which will never forgive her for them.  Brief Encounter was released towards the end of 1945, about some six months after the War in Europe had officially ended.  The actual conflict itself is never mentioned and the setting does not appear to be during wartime, but a moral murkiness pervades through every single shot.  The black and white photography seems to relish the smoky atmosphere of the railway station refreshment room while actively seeking out the shadow dense corners and alleys to where the secret lovers must retreat.  That’s not to say there are not moments of blissful romantic sunshine, but Lean heavily favors an expressionistic aesthetic to further enhance the sense of imminent mortality that such a fling would accumulate.  What fascinates me about Brief Encounter is the degree to which it reflects a society breathing easy for the first time in many years and attempting to pick up the pieces of its nearly shattered civilization.  I’m certainly not a historian so I’m going to tread very carefully here but the destruction endured by London and its surrounding areas during World War II begat an incredible bounty of films inspired by the notion of a burgeoning modern society coming into conflict with its more traditional values.  The lovers in Brief Encounter dare not speak of what they feel for the fear of “acceptable” societal rejection haunts them at every corner.  It’s a grim assessment any way you slice it because you’re either stuck in a loveless marriage or turned into a pariah because you followed your heart.  And aside from an unnecessarily tacked on coda implying Laura finally makes the right decision, what is so bold about Brief Encounter is that it refuses to make that very judgment call against its characters.  It’s a British take on very British material in that it simply observes with a clear-eyed, compassionate insight all that can be sacrificed in order to simply get on with it.  The fact that it still resonates almost seventy years from its release is a testament to its wise and knowing power.