45 Years (Haigh, 2015)

CONTAINS SPOILERS, READ IT AFTER YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM

Memory is something that a film critic has to rely on when the film in question is not instantly at hand. The final scene of 45 Years (Haigh, 2015) is of a couple dancing at their 45th wedding anniversary, the woman breaks away from her husband after the dance, the camera looks at her in mid-shot, she looks devastated, cut to black. We hear the words “We’ve already said… Goodbye” It is the song ‘Go Now’ by The Moody Blues. This moment is everything that the film has built to up, it has an extraordinary emotional release. The woman is Kate (Charlotte Rampling), the film centres on her as she hears the news that her husband’s former girlfriend’s body has been found in the Swiss Alps, she fell to her death fifty years ago. The husband Geoff (Tom Courtenay) seemed to me to possibly have Alzheimer’s when we first meet him in this scene. He reveals himself to have possible mental problems in his old age, he in his is late seventies, about ten years older than Kate.

Geoff refers to his former love as ‘my Katya’ which clearly distresses Kate. Geoff is never seen alone, he is always with Kate. Often the framing shows us the distance between them. In one scene Kate walks into the living room, she is at the right of the frame with Geoff hidden by a side wall as she talks to him. In a bedroom scene we see Geoff in mid-shot whilst part of Kate’s lower body is at the bottom of the frame. If we think of film as being influenced by painting each of these shots represent these moments of separation.

We meet old friends of Kate and Geoff, Lena (Geraldine James) and George (David Sibley) and their daughter Charlotte (Dolly Wells), the film wisely does not focus on them for a subplot, this is Kate’s story, she is in every scene. We learn that Kate and Geoff had no children, only dogs. Geoff explains that he was there when Katya died, he was a bit ahead of her on a mountain. After further distress Kate goes up to the attic to find sideshow photos of Katya, (we hear the sideshow during the black screen of the opening credits). It is revealed through the photos that Kayta was carrying a baby at the time of her death. This is literally the only dramatic element to Haigh’s film. Geoff and Kate don’t discuss this, although Kate tells him that there are things that she knows that she cannot talk about.

45 Years has only one use of non-diegetic sound, the sound of icy water in the Swiss Alps that Kate has rattled in her brain. The music is all heard on the house, car and function room CD players. Haigh really embraces no film score just like Michael Haneke, less is more. From the sadness of the past to awkward silences at home and Kate wandering around Norwich town centre wondering what she means to Geoff. As she says to him ‘I think I was good enough for you, I just don’t think you do’. The film is set from Monday-Saturday, each day starts with the beautiful Norfolk landscape, repetitive in the best possible way like everyday life. The selection of the song ‘Go Now’ for the end credits is a fascinating one. Kate receives a phone call just after she was in the attic with the sideshow, she is asked to name the songs that she wants for the anniversary party. She names about five songs, hesitates and then chooses ‘Go Now’, this is possibly a spontaneous choice given her mental state in this scene. It describes how she feels and how I felt when that final shot hit me. Kate’s thoughts are ambiguous in this final moment however.

Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders has talked about the close relationship between motion and emotion. In this case the motion of the cinematography of the angels point of view and the emotion of one angel, Damiel (Bruno Ganz). Like most of Wender’s protagonists, he looks to listen like in Alice in the Cities. I was in Berlin last week, I walked both sides of the Wall playing Jurgen Knieper’s theme from the film on my iPod over and over, I wanted to capture that emotion of what it was like to be human. I remember distinctly from the trailer, Cassiel (Otto Sander) falling from a statue intercut with wings followed by Ganz’ sound of joy as he bleeds like a human. Incidentally the sound of his joy in that moment isn’t in the final film. I’ve seen this film three or four times over the last six years. My general feeling about it hasn’t changed, I admire it more than love it. Peter Falk’s cameo as himself is charming, his presence adds a lovely feeling of having lived a life. Henri Alekan’s cinematography is incredibly alive, the change between black and white (for the angels) and colour (for the humans) remind me how much I love the vitality of colour. Maybe Peter Handke’s deep philosophical dialogue makes the film harder to connect with emotionally or at least fully. The film’s first hour isn’t as gripping as its second, the colour makes it even more alive. The first hour is like a dream that you don’t understand. A woman says to Damiel “who knows where time begins and space ends”

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder had made 40 feature films before his death at the young age of 37 in 1982. Fear Eats the Soul (1974) is a film that stares, right from the opening scene. Decent people have to bear it and get on with their lives. Fox and His Friends (1975) is possibly the most autobiographical of Fassbinder’s films with himself in the lead role as a gay man who wins the lottery, moves in with his lover and tries to live his life before it falls apart in front of him. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) co-stars Hanna Schygulla who appears in half of Fassbinder’s films. Schygulla is the new lover of costume designer Petra, their world is closed, taking place entirely in Petra’s house. The heartache, despair and beautiful moments like the dance to The Flamingos ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ haunt the memory. Fassbinder based Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) on the making of his previous film Whity (1971). Lou Castel is a crazy and hot-headed actor turned director. A wide-shot of Schygulla and other dancing around a battered Castel perfectly capture the madness. Hanna Schygulla stars in The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), her beauty, pose and determination make her incarnate of Fassbinder. His camera captures the despair and willfulness of his characters head-on. There isn’t a filmmaker who makes films more personal than him.