Saturday, January 26, 2013
HEADLONG ROMANCE
Today's Terrence Davies film is, actually, yes, another remake. But this time from the Fifties which was a film of the Terrence Rattigan play.
A NYTimes Critics' Pick. An old fashioned, highly disciplined and beautiful film about falling out of the bourgeois life and into an affair. Post WWII, a conventional and well educated daughter of a Vicar and the younger, almost too young, falls in love with a flying ace from WWII. The ace has yet to reach the ground. Cannot find a civilian niche. Goes for the girl because she is there.
But it is not about that. It is about mindless passion, some of the best sex scenes I have recently seen. It is about British class. Still working its ways on people.
It is about propriety and how fragile that can be in the face of feelings. Particularly in the Fifties.
It is about the War. Internal and external.
This thing works, this old fashioned theatrical crate, because it has the direction from Davies and the skill of its principals. Notably Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston as the star crossed lovers. Simon Russell Beale is the husband who still loves in a brotherly kind of way. Others flesh out the small cast with great skill.
This film has lots of space. Quiet points between the flashes of storm. And what storms. Passion is not just the sex or the intense infatuation. It also involves the hatred aroused in such a situation, of self and other.
Lots going on here.
The score is beautifully composed and played even with crying violins. Great.
Lovely colors in a postwar drab.
I would gladly watch this again. A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
