Brief Encounter

Adapted from Noel Coward’s play “Still Life”, directed by Alan Bridges and produced by Carlo Ponti, the 1974 film “Brief Encounter” is a small masterpiece, easily brushed under the carpet by all those who tend to believe that love stories should reflect glamour and heroism. On the contrary, this is a tale of uncomfortable passions and unspoken words.

Two strangers, both married, meet accidentally at a railway station, Burton who is a doctor, removes a particle of grid from Sophia Loren’s eye. They meet again by chance and become infatuated with each other. We sense on Burton’s side that he is taken by a passion that is beyond him, especially in the moment when Sophia Loren visibly falls for him and notices that he looks just like a little boy. In this moment she touches his heart unwillingly, most likely in a way that no-one has ever done before. She is in contemplation, in a much different state than he is, almost in a dream-like hypnotic state of mind. Through their short-lived encounters and conversations, they are taken to places they had forgotten about, places where dreams co-exist with reality.  Richard Burton is tempestuous in his passion (A trait he embodies gracefully as he did in “The Medusa Touch”) whereas Loren is frail, eerie, detached, almost as someone who stepped aside long ago, to become a mere observer of her own life. Burton acts as an inevitable trigger of her awakening, but on their first escapade together, there are irrefutable signs that this acquaintance under the sign of deceit is doomed to fail.  A road accident they witness on the countryside leaves a gloomy and bitter taste in the air.

Burton makes arrangements to meet in a friend’s apartment (They have nowhere else to go), but what happens there is nightmarish for both of them.  Burton’s friend, Steven, arrives home earlier than planned and we learn that Burton had not told Steven he would be bringing a friend over. Steven who is inebriated, comments on this, (not without a touch of sarcasm) and suspects that this is all just a fling with a nurse.  Loren sneaks out, humiliated, exposed, degraded, leaving behind her jacket and purse. Burton runs after her and finds her at the train station cafeteria, but now all that remains is an overwhelming feeling of shame, humiliation and sacrilege. The ultimate violation of a temple never conquered. Loren comments “It all seemed so innocent.. it was like a dream of love”

The final scenes are heartbreaking. Again a train rages through the station and acts as a powerful metaphor to all that is fleeting in our world and the very brief moments we have to make decisions that impact that rest of our lives.

RELEASED: November 1974

Director: Alan Bridges

Running Time: 74 mn

Cast: Sophia Loren, Richard Burton

Rating: 4 stars