Brief Encounter - Criterion Collection [DVD] [1945] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

David Lean worked with Noel Coward to produce this cinematic masterpiece from the stage to live forever in the great history of British film. The direction is constant and reliable with effective close ups and steady paced editing throughout. The effect of this is that we recognise the feelings of the characters and always feel somehow depressed throughout the film to personalise us with the main character, there is little heart pumping adrenaline in the film. The down beat mood is backed up by the thriller film signifiers of rainy streets, undesirable locations and dark noir lighting. One of the first shots in the film contains chiaroscuro lighting as the camera looks down the station at the incoming train, this shot is masterfully placed at this point as if to say that the outside world is so different to the world within the train station, the world that the main character would love to escape but knows she cannot. Most of the film is shot in the small cafe in the station where the main character played by Celia Johnson first falls in love with Trevor Howard.... Celia Johnson steals the show as the main character with her heartwrenchinly sad interpretation of a woman torn between loyalty to her family and an exciting affair associated with the outside world. We are in her shoes as the main character by the constant account from her viewpoint, not a single scene in the film isn't from her perspective or narrated with her voice and in this way we have to make her decisions and feel just as sad as she does. The film does not use a linear narrative as about 10 mins into the film we see the flashback of the events of the past few weeks barely interrupted and continuing to near the end of the film. The film makes a complete loop and we end up back where we started, in the cafe, finally understanding the feelings of the main character, the narrative enigma set out in the first scene. The music in the film is entirely one piece, Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto, a piece which I can never listen to without thinking of the film. In fact the sound is positioned so perfectly in the film to suit the moods that particular sections in the piece remind me of exact points in the film, I found this even after seeing the film only once. The music is one of the most perfect examples of a single soundtrack in a film.

I find that one needs to see the film three times in a reasonable period to fully appreciate the use of the camera and the moral struggle of a woman in so much pain but the brilliance of this simple love story will repay a lifetime of viewings as it lives on as one of the best examples of British romance in cinema. Read more ›