45 Years, Review: 95 minutes of great cinema

A tender and touching British film waits you in the shape of 45 Years. If you have had enough of mass destructive action, comic superheroes and animation, try this slice of life that challenges you to find artificiality in either the narrative or in the performances. No action at all, no heroes, no animation, very little comedy, a few dies of subtle humour, and the sex quotient is a lesson in bedroom manners.

The film takes place across six days, marked by inter-titles.

News of the discovery of a body in the Swiss Alps shakes the easy-going life of a childless British provincial couple, Geoff (Tom Courtenay) and Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling), living in Norfolk. The woman had slipped into the fissure on a glacier and died 50 years ago, when the husband, was dating her. Now happily married, for 45 years, he has not talked about his earlier affair to his wife, except in passing, and as he gets jolted by the news of the amazing discovery, uneasiness and tensions surface. The couple had to cancel their 40th wedding anniversary because of his heart by-pass surgery, and are now planning to celebrate their 45th anniversary instead, with dozens of friends, at the Assembly House in Norwich.

Prodded by Kate, Geoff talks about his relationship with Katya and thoughts evoked by the discovery of her body. He tells Kate that he and Katya had pretended to be married, in order to be able to share a room in the more puritanical early 1960s. Because of this, the Swiss authorities consider him to be Katya's next of kin. Kate is troubled by the revelation. While Geoff is attending a reunion luncheon at the plant from which he retired, Kate, climbs up into the attic, to see what things her husband may be keeping there. She finds a carousel slide projector, loaded with images of Switzerland and Katya, next to a make-shift screen to view them. One slide shows Katya with her hand on her protruding abdomen, indicating Katya was pregnant at the time of her death.

Though it unfolds quite like a play, it is, in fact, based on a short story, featured in the compilation, In Another Country by David Constantine, now 71. Categorically not factual, the basic premise arose from a real incident. Holidaying in France some 15 years ago, Constantine heard of the discovery of a twenty-something mountain guide, who had fallen down a glacial crevasse, in Chamonix, in the 1930s. Seventy years on, the retreating ice released its hold on the guide’s body, which the son he had fathered before his death, was taken to identify. The shocking sight of his father--perfectly preserved in his prime, while he himself approached his eighties--tipped the son towards insanity.

In the film, Geoff does not go to identify the body, and it is the woman who dies, not the guide. But more than the tragic accident, it is the ambience that Constantine recreates, and the life of the couple that he captures, that effuse genius (read excerpt below). Also, do not miss the references to British politics, Fascism and global warming. They are inherent in the scenario, yet obviously and cleverly inserted to create a sub-text. Screenplay by Andrew Haigh works out the plot with great economy and consistency, and even the characters who are given brief or no screen time seem familiar and omnipresent. These include two dogs, one already dead when the story begins. Sensitive and smoothly edited (Haigh used to be an assistant editor and worked on films like Gladiator and Black Hawk Dawn), the film forms lump after lump in your throat. Director Andrew Haigh (Greek Pete, Weekend) has shown remarkable maturity for a relatively new entrant in the field. British English is easy to follow, without any Scotttish, Welsh or Cockney accents. Attention to detail, like sets, locales and lighting, is another quality he oozes in good measure. Perhaps the only little shortcoming is the lack of natural cutting points in the editing pattern.

Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling are both a delight. 78-year-old Courtenay (Dr. Zhivago, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Billy Liar, The Dresser) never lets you feel that he has done far fewer films than an actor of his calibre should have. Rampling, who turned 70 on February 5, by contrast, has been prolific--Georgy Girl, The Damned, The Night Porter, Farewell, My Lovely, Stardust Memories, The Verdict , Max, Mon Amour , Swimming Pool , Melancholia).

Both have equally charged roles: Courtenay the colder of the two, more aloof, a heart patient, smoking occasionally against medical advice, strong political views; Rampling the more practical, more social, the one who takes control of their lives, nurses him in his ill-health, and above all, who has to accept reject an affair that pre-dated their marriage. How can you choose between the two? But I can understand why more film-buffs rate Rampling’s portrayal a notch higher. The pair share an uncomfortable sex scene—the first in Courtenay’s career, it was meant to be uncomfortable

Geraldine James (Mirabehn in Gandhi, Mrs. Hudson in Sherlock Holmes; now 65) as Lena, Dolly Wells (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Bridget Jones’ Diary) as Charlotte and David Sibley (Gandhi, Closed Circuit, The Sleeping Room; also a professional photographer; now 67) as George provide solid, unobtrusive support.

At 95 minutes, 45 Years manages to assimilate the ambience of the childless home of an elderly couple, post-retirement emptiness and unfulfilled desires, and countryside camaraderie, into a brilliant matrix.

Rating: ****

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5cpiX18TA

Excerpt from the short story

What worried Mrs Mercer suddenly took shape. Into the little room came a rush of ghosts. She sat down opposite him and both felt cold.

That Katya, she said.

Yes, he said. They’ve found her in the ice.

I see, said Mrs Mercer. After a while she said: I see you found your book.

Yes, he said. It was behind the pickles. You must have put it there.

I suppose I must, she said.

It was an old Cassell’s. There were words in the letter, in the handwriting, he could not make out and words in the dictionary he could hardly find, in the old Gothic script; still, he had understood.

Years since I read a word of German, he said. Funny how it starts coming back to you when you see it again.

I daresay, said Mrs Mercer. The folded cloth lay between them on the polished table.

It’s this global warming, he said, that we keep hearing about.

What is? she asked.

Why they’ve found her after all this time. Though he was the one with the information his face seemed to be asking her for help with it.

The snow’s gone off the ice, he said. You can see right in. And she’s still in there just the way she was.

I see, said Mrs Mercer.

She would be, wouldn’t she, he added, when you come to think about it.

Yes, said Mrs Mercer, when you come to think about it I suppose she would.

Again, with his face and with a slight lifting of his mottled hands he seemed to be asking her to help him comprehend.

Well, she said after a pause during which she drew the cloth towards her and folded it again and then again. Can’t sit here all day. I’ve got my club.

Yes, he said. It’s Tuesday. You’ve got your club.

She rose and made to leave the room but halted in the door and said: What are you going to do about it?

Do? he said. Oh nothing. What can I do?

All day in a trance. Katya in the ice, the chaste snow drawn off her.

He cut himself shaving, stared at his face, tried to fetch out the twenty-year-old from under his present skin. Trickle of blood, pink froth where it entered the soap.

He tried to see through his eyes into wherever the soul or spirit or whatever you call it lives that doesn’t age with the casing it is in.

The little house oppressed him. There were not enough rooms to go from room to room in, nowhere to pace.

He looked into the flagstone garden but the neighbours either side were out and looking over.

It drove him only in his indoor clothes out and along the road a little way to where the road went down suddenly steeply and the estate of all the same houses was redeemed by a view of the estuary, the mountains and the open sea.

He stood there thinking of Katya in the ice. Stood there so long the lady whose house he was outside standing there came out and asked: Are you all right, Mr Mercer?

Fine, he said, and saw his own face mirrored in hers, ghastly.

I’m too old, he thought. I don’t want it all coming up in me again. We’re both of us too old. We don’t want it all welling up in us again.

But it had begun.

In Another Country: Selected Stories, and The Life-Writer, by David Constantine, are both published by Comma Press.