45 Years (2015)
Director: Andrew Haigh
Watched: 4/14/18
Rating: 7/10
Unostentatious,
Both Rampling and Courtenay,
Performances that
Impress with their subtleness.
A British couple
Leading quaint lives with dog Max,
About to honor
Their lifetime spent together.
While making plans
For grand celebration with
Family and friends,
Unexpectedly meet with
Challenge to their love.
A letter from Germany,
They found her body.
Informative in nature,
But of course much more,
Stirring up old emotions.
A husband’s past love,
More important than once thought.
Things he never told,
Secrets up in the attic.
Engaged and pregnant,
So many decades ago.
Yet it still matters.
A wife’s struggle to accept
A past betrayal.
Enthralling despite slow pace,
Humor at right times,
Music that strikes the right chord,
English countryside
Serves as beautiful background,
Weather its own role.
Double character study,
But mostly Rampling,
Close-ups on reticent face.
Wished for something more
From Courtenay’s character.
Maybe tedious,
But that is how real life is.
No easy answers,
An unsatisfying end.
Haigh shows us real life,
The fragility of love.
He tried in “Weekend”,
Succeeds with “45 Years”.
On incompleteness,
A perceptive perspective
Why history never dies.
Choka (long poem) is an epic storytelling form of poetry from the Waka period, an unrhymed poem with the 5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7…7 syllable format (any odd number line length with alternating five and seven syllable lines that ends with an extra seven syllable line).