Oh, So Brief...

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On our way up to Junction 10 of the M56 to meet up halfway with Kev for Jane's visit to her family in Carnforth this week, we were listening on Radio Four to Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones on the film programme, Screenshot. The topic of conversation was centred on Wong Kar-wai's film of 2000, "I'm In The Mood For Love", which apparently is finding a cult following amongst new cinema-goers born around or after the film's actual release; which can't be at all bad: bringing young people back into long-form media can only be a good sign after the last few years of mind-sapping insta-this and insta-that short-term bollocks. Add to this that the film is unashamedly romantic and emotional, and you have a ray of hope in the current wilderness of disconnected humanity.

Films mentioned in the same breath that might also be current favourites with this new generation of romantic cinephiles were "Casablanca" and "Brief Encounter"; both similarly about thwarted, unrequited love; that poignant human condition most of us are so familiar with from some period in our lives. Interesting that Jane's destination today hosts the railway station famous for its part in the film "Brief Encounter" with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. I've written about such fleeting personal encounters previously [blog posts passim]: the peach girl, for instance. The poignancy and magic of these unrequited encounters is still with me to this day. Had they been consummated, the magic would have been lost. Better left and remembered as if in a dream...

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