Before he would direct his later career epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, director David Lean ended his string of play adaptations with perhaps the most celebrated romance movie ever.
Before he would direct his later career epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, director David Lean ended his string of play adaptations with perhaps the most celebrated romance movie ever. At an 86 minute running time, Brief Encounter is tight, neat, and nearly flawless in execution. Unequivocally a British film, 1945’s Brief Encounter is filled with pronounced class repression, quiet restraint, and charming politeness that can only be found across the pond.
Set mostly within a railway station, Brief Encounter follows a passing but passionate affair between two bored, married, and approaching mid-life adults named Laura, a homebody (Celia Johnson), and Alec (Trevor Howard), a doctor. Told from Laura’s point-of-view (and perhaps somewhat her heightened imagination), we witness her pleasant but dull domestic life. Her husband (Cyril Raymond) hardly notices her as he absently agrees with everything she shares with him while he does the crossword routinely. Her children are actually kind of creepy and adult-like for being so young and amazingly well mannered. Leon is so good at getting his characters on our side; an affair seems almost entirely justified.
A bolt bit of excitement flashes her way when Alec, a man “with a pleasant face” helps get some soot out of her eye from a passing train. It’s easy to say that parts of the film can come off as overly typical or cliché, but Brief Encounter was actually rather bold for its time. With a strong emphasis on realism, it can be said the film is actually rather nightmare-ish and features unnervingly stark black and white. With heavy trains hurdling past, the station feels like a shadow and smoke filled manmade industrial trap. Death is not only present but reachable in Laura and Alec’s world and only adds to the heightened atmosphere.
Bringing about two sympathetic and ultimately layered characters is what allowed such a taboo plot to be not only tolerated but also galvanized for its time. The leading stars for example, were never leading actors themselves. They had an everyday resonance to them that audiences connected with despite their moral compass. Not many films can yield the feeling of mutual but still nervous attraction and maintaining the façade of platonic acquaintance quite like it. The film actually comments on this by taking our adulterers on an outing to see an intrepid film cheekily titled Flames of Passion. We watch as or commonplace leads nervously watch the romantic epic in a darkened and crowded movie theatre.
Structurally, anybody having watched last year’s Carol will recognize the film’s beginning-is-the-ending contextualized and then re-contextualized framing device. It’s a rewarding trick and Lean implements it masterfully. In fact Brief Encounter was adapted from the stage to the screen (from Noël Coward’s heavily augmented one-act play Still Life) and features a more constrained timeline and less homosexual undertones. Amazing to consider these relationships are still being explored even in today’s movie climate. It also shows how progressive of a film Brief Encounter was for its time. Ireland actually banned the film for its overly sympathetic portrayal of two adulterers.
Just rarely do movies ever evoke the type of yearning and romanticism of a doomed romance that Brief Encounter relishes in. Even less so where you don’t feel manipulated or cheated by the narrative or characters. Love, more often than not, is about timing after all. The ending is quite beautiful despite its inherit sadness.
Rather than contempt, Brief Encounter wins one over with its exquisitely human characters, bold exploration into love, and lustrous film making.
Brief Encounter is reintroduced by Criterion on Blu-Ray for the first time as a single stand-alone release. The original DVD release was a part of the David Lean Directs Noël Coward set along with various other inclusions in various boxsets. It features the High-definition digital transfer of the BFI National Archive’s 2008 restoration along with the audio commentary by film historian Bruce Eder from 2000. The commentary is informative but rather stilted and kind of feels like a long essay being read during the corresponding scenes it elaborates on. An interview with Noël Coward scholar Barry Day is included and quite insightful. Two separate documentaries are included, David Lean: A Self Portrait, a 1971 television documentary on Lean’s career, along with Brief Encounter, a short but sturdy documentary on the film from 2000. This is rounded out with the film’s trailer and featuring an essay from historian Kevin Brownlow. All in all, it’s a suburb release and a must for anybody with an interest in British cinema and really, any romantic pulse.
Brief Encounter
England (1945)
David Lean
Spine #76
Available on Hulu, DVD, and Blu-Ray
