#10: Brief Encounter (1945) (dir. David Lean)

Some love isn't meant to last and that can be both tragic and beautiful.

Some movies live rent free in my head as many say these days. This is one of them. I know we hate to use the word ‘perfect’ sometimes because nearly every thing has a flaw or something noteworthy to point out and criticize. But what we have here is my definition of perfection and I felt that way from the first viewing to the fourth. Movies about doomed romance, forbidden love or affection that lasts only a short while always work their magic in ways that feel honest and genuine. Perhaps it’s because I’ve experienced it a few times - realizing that instead of holding on, letting go is the hardest thing to do for a reason. It’s what is right and necessary for growth.

The film, based on Noël Coward’s play Still Life, was one of director David Lean’s first great successes. The setting is England, just before the Second World War. A prologue features Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) awkwardly separating from Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) at the town of Milford train station refreshment room, as the insufferably talkative Dolly Messiter (Everley Gregg) interrupts their final farewell before he relocates his family and life to Africa. In a daze Laura makes it home to her husband Fred (Cyril Raymond) and two kids. In her mind, she recounts the events of the past few weeks.

A friendly conversation over tea between Laura and Alec leads to a series of arranged meetings, and initially, a platonic relationship gradually develops. Eventually, however, the two realize they are falling in love with each other and become agonized by guilt over their feelings. After a thwarted attempt at a private rendezvous, their future as a couple is decided when Alec announces he has accepted a job in South Africa. A long-distance relationship is impossible.

There's a scene near a fireplace where she mentions her new "acquaintance" to her husband, that ends with one of the most sublime bursts of emotion (and not overplayed in the slightest) that might be one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a movie - one of those moments I knew this was going to be another movie that I wouldn’t just watch. It would become part of me. It was going to find a place in my heart. When I first saw this back in 2014, I immediately felt I discovered a new all-time favorite for a lot of reasons.

First off: when I was listening to the score, that element alone was making me weep but I couldn’t place where I had heard it before. “Must’ve been used in a different movie,” was my first thought. Then it slowly came to: Rachmaninoff's “Piano Concerto #2” is used when Laura wanders the streets alone. That’s the bridge from Eric Carmen’s 80s power ballad, "All by Myself." As a lonely kid, back when I first heard that song wandering a mall while my mom went shopping, that song also made me cry. (Strangely enough, I used to confuse that song with Harry Nilsson’s “Without You,” and they have a very similar structure).

Devoid of glamorous stars or exotic locations, this is a portrayal of love most unexpected, most unwanted, random in a most unlikely place. The train station, often dark and shrouded by steam, is a mystical transfer point between real life at one end and a compelling dream fantasy at the other, the nondescript refreshment room a decision area where suddenly anything is possible and futures can be rewritten. You can see how this film went on to influence and inspire a lot of films, particularly Before Sunrise which is basically this exact same story only for Generation X.

“So many great touches here: The narration as imagined confession, the framing scene that adds so much significance once we circle back to it, and just the passion with which these two throw themselves into an affair that they know is not sustainable.” - Scott Tobias

Lean captures the warmth and longing embedding in his characters with a delicate touch and familiar intimacy. Coward’s words are also worth nothing - he clearly might’ve been writing from personal experience because it feels so grounded, so lived in, so realized. It’s hard to imagine films like Carol or In The Mood For Love without the exquisite template that began with Brief Encounter. The title says it all - even the running time of this story is contained and short.

Laura’s words spoken so eloquently: “I wish I could trust you. I wish you were a wise, kind friend instead of a gossiping acquaintance I’ve known casually for years and never particularly cared for. I wish, I wish….I wish you would stop talking. I wish you would stop prying, trying to find things out. I wish you were dead, no, I didn’t mean that. That was silly and unkind. But I wish you would stop talking.

This can’t last; this misery can’t last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really, neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There will come a time in the future when I shan’t mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say peacefully and cheerily how silly I was. No, no I don’t want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute always, always to the end of my days.”

For the pair of Alec and Laura, it is about fulfilling a void left by loneliness or domestication or societal expectation. Alec wishes to gain something he loses to his colleagues; he wants a leg up intellectually, or rather someone to tell him that he’s smarter than he actually is. There’s still a romantic connection but it’s a different kind. Laura wants something similar, but it is merely a part of an overall package. She enjoys conversing, but she also enjoys other pursuits: boating, fine dining, attaining something she lost when she became a mother. But they realize that this relationship becomes cumbersome to those around them, specifically Laura’s family. She rarely sees them anymore and they almost become an afterthought.

What if love itself becomes an afterthought is what the movie supposes. There’s the possibility of some connections becoming stronger as time comes on and regardless, the memory will remain. But what if one moment in time is enough? One day, one week, one month - a brief encounter that never becomes anything more even if the desire for more is substantial. The idea of being happy with what we have could be overestimated. Laura (and a lot of Douglas Sirk protagonists) question their chosen place in the world but leaving it comes with its own risks and ramifications. Brief Encounter finds the romance in impermanence.

Brief Encounter is a remarkable experience in every way - from the noir-like shadows, to the foggy exteriors, the sublime and subtle acting and of course that indelible score that even sounds like a distant memory being recalled. I first saw it at a strange time when I was experiencing immense depression and a sense of dislocation with my surroundings. Plus I was experiencing unhealthy emotions and eventual physical illness. This movie showed me in a direct way that I had to let go of something that was never meant to be in the first place and to be grateful for what I had with someone significant. Appreciate what is, not what it could’ve been as you imagined.

We have to understand that if we take in this tantalizing ‘something else,’ we then must prepare to give up what we already have. The ‘something else’ is immediately romanticized because it’s new, but is it what’s best for us in the long-term? I truly feel the collaboration between Noel Coward and David Lean tapped into something deeper than just a doomed love story. They tapped into a universal human experience of feeling uncertain and stagnation - it doesn’t even have to be about an idealized craving for someone desirable (pairing quite nicely with the last film I wrote about Take This Waltz). It can be about the home we live in, the friends we have, the job we go to - what if there’s more out there and we’re missing out?

Brief Encounter is explosive in its restraint accompanied with a heartbreaking sentiment. Two quiet and normal people consumed by a forbidden love, torn between the uncontrollable urge of what feels so right, and the cerebral pull of what is simply right. We all know what it’s like. The pain. The fear. The bliss. We have been both Laura and Alec. About a decade ago, I slowly learned to let go and now I have found something that feels much healthier and catered to my desires for a more meaningful connection that could in turn lead to a better future. Some love is both impossible and yet, inescapable. This is a film that explores that feeling in a way that few movies could ever dream of. Finally, there are works of art that can make me cry just thinking about certain scenes, moments and gestures. This is one of them.