September Blind Spot: Brief Encounter

Do you know a movie that anyone who has seen it praises unconditionally but you still don't hear whole lot of buzz around them otherwise? I mean, we all know movies that we think are under appreciated but this is taking it to the next level. I think my film for this month, Brief Encounter(1945), is one such film. I know lot of people who think world of this film. I should rather say it like this - I have never seen anyone say anything remotely bad about this film. But somehow this film has successfully eluded me thus far. I decided I wasn't going to let it go any further this year and finally put it on this list. And here we are, in the month of September, I have finally seen it!

Brief Encounter is about an affair of two sensible, happily married people with perfect families who wouldn't even think about cheating on their spouses, that is, until they meet each other. Even their meeting is a chance meeting. Laura is a housewife and spends her Wednesdays shopping and Alec is a doctor who spends his subbing for a friend. Their paths cross at a Milford railway station where they catch trains in opposite directions every week. They meet for the first time in waiting room where he helps her get something out of her eye. Over the next couple of weeks their paths cross again on few occasions and two very easily strike up rather innocent friendship at first. However, as they start spending more and more time with each other watching movies and sharing lunches, even they don't realize when it turns into a full blown affair.

It opens with Laura and Alec parting their ways. It is one of those scenes where both Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard say a lot without actually saying much; probably even the best of the lot. Rest of the film plays out inside Laura's head where she imagines she is telling everything about this encounter to her husband. This is a rather interesting tool since it makes us privy to all the information first hand, from Laura's own perspective. It tells us things that we otherwise would only guess like at every step of the way, both Laura and Alec knew what they are doing will have serious repercussions and still kept going with it. In their own words, they decide not to see other a thousand times over the week but still end up together every Wednesday.

Neither Celia Johnson nor Trevor Howard are particularly attractive or traditionally beautiful. But this story is not driven by their physical attraction and it is a very welcome change. We don't get many films like that. What drives this story is their innocuous desire to get out of the ordinary, to do something different from their routine life and once ball gets rolling, no one really knows how to stop it or whether they really want it to stop it. What makes it work is chemistry of Johnson and Howard, compact script and direction. And it is directed by David Lean in his early period of British films. When someone says David Lean, films that I associate this name with are his sprawling epic films like Lawrence of Arabia(1962), Doctor Zhivago(1965) or even A Passage to India(1984)(even though I wasn't the biggest fan of it). It was nice to see him making such a personal film with equal finesse.

However as much as I like it, and I do feel very strange saying this but, I cannot help but feel a little disappointed and this is completely my own fault. When I think back on it, I can only think of good things about this movie but never being really wowed by it. I have seen many people giving this film glowing review. While I sat down to watch this one, even I was expecting to be swept off my feet a la In the Mood for Love(1999). What I forgot was it impressed me so much was because I had no expectations at all from it; I didn't even know it then! Here I already was expecting a masterpiece here and now even a really good film seems like a letdown. I told you, I have no one else but myself to blame.

In the Mood for Love AKA movie that saved my weekend

Friday, 27th Januray 2012. I am done with my masters, big burden off my shoulders. I am already planning my weekend ahead. I have seen only 2 movies in the whole 2 weeks before that, so I already have few DVDs checked out from my library. I come home, relieved and high in anticipation to make up for my last 2 weeks. First up is Witness for the Prosecution(1957), something which I wanted to see for a long time but let me just say it wasn't up to the Billy Wilder standards. I am starting to think that Agatha Christie books are damn good books but somehow they don't transfer into great screenplays. Next up is highly anticipated Akira(2001). It turns out to be Scarface(1983) of Anime, if that makes any sense to you. Does everything had to be that over the top ? Little disappointed but still hopeful because next one is Michael Heneke's Code Unknown(2000). It will be way to premature to say anything about it because I am almost sure that I haven't understood it. So, it remains more like 'Work in Progress'. So, by Sunday afternoon, I am pretty desperate, almost begging on my knees: 'Please let me like the next movie I watch'. So, I keep Dr.Strangelove(1965) aside because I am not a Kubrick fan traditionally, dig into my Netflix queue, go up and down few times and decide to go with In the Mood for Love(2000) and Thank God for that !! It made my weekend.

Set in Shanghaiese enclave of Hong Kong in 1962, In the Mood for Love(2000) tells us the story centered on two couples or rather two halves of young couples leaving as tenants, across the hall from each other. We have Mrs. Chan, who works as a secretary in the export company and her husband works for a multinational company which keeps on sending him on frequent trips to Japan and Mr. Chow, who is a newspaper editor and his wife also does a job which keeps on sending her out a lot. After they move in as neighbors on the same day, they get introduced to each other as anyone of us would to our neighbors - occasional hi-hello, a casual smile and eventually warm up to each other with more interaction and their common liking of martial arts stories. Mr. Chow is having a little problem in his marriage since he found out that his wife lied to him about something. One of his colleagues plants a seed of doubt in his mind when he tells him that he saw his wife with another man. Initially, he discards the seemingly outrageous thought but then he notices that Mrs. Chan has exact same handbag as his wife. He decides to talk to her and see if he can make any sense out of it. When they meet over dinner, they realize that both their spouses are cheating on them with each other and they both suspected it all along.

Now that they know the truth, they are drawn together being passengers on the same train. They wonder how did their spouse's affair start ? Help each other confronting their spouses by role playing and if nothing else helps, be there for each other when they both are lonely. Even though their intentions are admirable to start with, as they keep on spending more time together, borders start to faze out. Director Kar Wai Wong takes a simple story, the restraint and growing passion between these two people and then go on playing endless blue notes to get us hooked. Without actually showing anything on screen, he uses rain and eye gestures to do the work of creating the right mood to the great effect. One more thing he uses really well is their role playing game , which starts as to help each other understand what exactly happened. However, when they both are not sure of how many borders they are ready to cross, unsuspectingly they cross the borders of their roles and what we get is an extremely vivid collage of their feelings. One more fun fact, apparently Wong never uses any script. Most of his work is improvisation, deciding which direction to head next on the spur, crafting the story and mood as he went along.

It bagged Actor's Award and technical prize which includes editing, cinematography and production design. If you have seen few Chinese movies, you might recognize Tony Leung who did Leo DiCaprio's role from The Departed(2006) in original Infernal Affairs(2002) or General Zhou Yu in Red Cliff (2008-09) double and amazing Maggie Cheung. She looks so stunning in it that I am sure her husband was blind to cheat on her. There is no way, a man can cheat on her with his eyes open, there just isn't. Apparently, lot of effort was put in to make her look pretty. According to IMDb, she has worn 46 different cheung-won dresses in the movie, different one for each scene and it used to take 5 hours to do her hair and make-up. Apart from being visually brilliant with exceptional use of slow motion to set mood for viewers, one more very striking thing about it is, this Soundtrack called "Yumeji's Theme" is probably one of the best I have heard ever. It is not only sensual but is used to the ultimate effect to set the tone throughout the movie. If all this doesn't put you in mood, probably nothing will.

Rating(out of 5):