45 YEARS is a slow film. It's only 98 minutes, but I have to admit I had to check my watch a couple of times. It's a nearly 100% internal film. We're told only as little as we need to be...the rest we have to glean through careful observation. But if you invest that attention into the film, you'll be quietly thrilled to rediscover how great FILM acting (in this case by Charlotte Rampling in particular) can give you insights no other medium can.
We meet a reserved, childless British couple in their country home in Norfolk, England. Clearly comfortably settled into a quiet retirement. Husband Tom Courtenay is a mildy grumpy old man (perhaps the beginnings of dementia...he clearly has some mild memory issues and a sometimes unpredictable temperament). Wife Charlotte Rampling fills her days with mundane tasks, but doesn't seem actively unhappy. She is planning a 45th wedding anniversary party for she and her husband (no family to do it for them), and that's the big excitement in their lives. The film deftly paints their relationship...we see how settled they are together and we see how they overlook (for the most part) the little things that bug them about their spouses. There's a sense that they are aware that their lives are winding down...so it's melancholy but not oppressively so around their lovely cottage.
Minutes into the film, the day's mail arrives, and with it, a letter that will slowly eat away at this marriage. After 50+ years, the body of Courtenay's first great love has been discovered in the ice of the glacier she fell into all those decades ago while on an extended Swiss alps getaway. Rampling knew that her husband's first girlfriend had died so suddenly and tragically. What she didn't know what how much this past love still resided with her husband even now. He is rattled by the news, and begins to share (unbidden) more and more details about the relationship. And Rampling wants to shake off the feeling (if she hadn't died, I wouldn't even be married to this man). She tries to be supportive, but she is clearly pained. And it only gets worse and she discovers deeper secrets on her own. (No spoilers here, unlike what I've read in other reviews.)
Most of this torment is internal. She verbalizes very little, but Rampling does an exquisite job of showing the impact she's feeling. It's touching and believable and worst of all, inexorable. Like a slow moving glacier, we see her comfort, her sense of self and her place in the world, and even her affection for her husband being eroded and tested.
Like a glacier, the film appears to move slowly. VERY slowly. The viewer must commit to these characters and to being interested in their very private journeys. If not, the film will be a pointless drag and a downer. If you do settle in, you'll be caught up in these richly drawn out characters (especially Rampling).
The Criterion Blu-Ray is gorgeous. The landscape, even as bleak as it is, pops with quiet beauty. The frequent close ups on faces don't hide anything. And the sound mix is, surprisingly, quite effective. I haven't watched all the "extras" yet, but what I have seen has been excellent and has really helped bring more meaning to the film.
If the description of the pacing hasn't put you off, see this film!
We meet a reserved, childless British couple in their country home in Norfolk, England. Clearly comfortably settled into a quiet retirement. Husband Tom Courtenay is a mildy grumpy old man (perhaps the beginnings of dementia...he clearly has some mild memory issues and a sometimes unpredictable temperament). Wife Charlotte Rampling fills her days with mundane tasks, but doesn't seem actively unhappy. She is planning a 45th wedding anniversary party for she and her husband (no family to do it for them), and that's the big excitement in their lives. The film deftly paints their relationship...we see how settled they are together and we see how they overlook (for the most part) the little things that bug them about their spouses. There's a sense that they are aware that their lives are winding down...so it's melancholy but not oppressively so around their lovely cottage.
Minutes into the film, the day's mail arrives, and with it, a letter that will slowly eat away at this marriage. After 50+ years, the body of Courtenay's first great love has been discovered in the ice of the glacier she fell into all those decades ago while on an extended Swiss alps getaway. Rampling knew that her husband's first girlfriend had died so suddenly and tragically. What she didn't know what how much this past love still resided with her husband even now. He is rattled by the news, and begins to share (unbidden) more and more details about the relationship. And Rampling wants to shake off the feeling (if she hadn't died, I wouldn't even be married to this man). She tries to be supportive, but she is clearly pained. And it only gets worse and she discovers deeper secrets on her own. (No spoilers here, unlike what I've read in other reviews.)
Most of this torment is internal. She verbalizes very little, but Rampling does an exquisite job of showing the impact she's feeling. It's touching and believable and worst of all, inexorable. Like a slow moving glacier, we see her comfort, her sense of self and her place in the world, and even her affection for her husband being eroded and tested.
Like a glacier, the film appears to move slowly. VERY slowly. The viewer must commit to these characters and to being interested in their very private journeys. If not, the film will be a pointless drag and a downer. If you do settle in, you'll be caught up in these richly drawn out characters (especially Rampling).
The Criterion Blu-Ray is gorgeous. The landscape, even as bleak as it is, pops with quiet beauty. The frequent close ups on faces don't hide anything. And the sound mix is, surprisingly, quite effective. I haven't watched all the "extras" yet, but what I have seen has been excellent and has really helped bring more meaning to the film.
If the description of the pacing hasn't put you off, see this film!