How many times have you been caught in a love triangle in the middle of a civil war while you lose your plantation home? How many times have you wandered into a bar in Morocco and gotten caught up in a lost love who is now married to a resistance fighter? If your answer is anything more than zero, then what the heck are you doing watching movies. "Brief Encounter" is a 1945 British film that shook the world of romance because the story is essentially so boring that real people immediately felt it in the core of their hearts. And 75 years later, I'm willing to bet that it'll grip you the same way.
Plot summary: two strangers meet briefly on a railway platform and soon realize that they are both there every Thursday at the same time. Over the course of several Thursdays, recognition becomes familiarity, familiarity becomes friendship, friendship eventually becomes love. But the problem is that they are both taken.
THIS, my romantic friends, is how love happens in the real world. It's not planned, not necessarily elegant, and in most cases it's not opportune. In a word, it's imperfect. The power of this film lies in the way this theme is brought to life. We are immersed in a world of mundane details. We eavesdrop on random conversations at the railway station, miniature dramas of everyday life, until we settle on the 2 protagonists and become interested in their story. The camera continues to remind us of how ordinary the world is, taking detours to sideshows and unrelated plots involving nonessential characters. But it's not boring because we know that this is how real life works. And before you know it, you are swallowed up in this world as if it's your own.
"Brief Encounter" is the sort of film that can make you feel like you're falling in love even if you've never been in love. Or it can remind you of that "what if" scenario you left in your own past. Excellent cinematography and lighting, along with the excellent acting, are icing on the cake. If you want to feel--or remember--what love is like, then this is your ticket.
