An Affair to Remember.....a
timeless concept
This movie is truly a work of art in more ways than one. The performance
by both Gary Grant and Deborah Kerr is sensitive, passionate, intense and sometimes even humorous. In this story of a two people that are meant to be together, the pressures of real life events delay what ultimately must be. Other individuals and their feelings need to be considered. When that is resolved in their minds and they proceed to keep their meeting after six months at the Empire State Building, destiny intercedes. She is run over by a car in the streets below the Empire State Building and he is left waiting for her until is closing time. She is left paralyzed. Of course she doesn’t want his pity so she never calls him and starts a new life.
In the meantime, he is devastated and seeks refuge in his old fiancée and returns to his art creating one of his best paintings. The
painting is all about her. As destiny will have it, she buys the painting and requests that he doesn't find out. In his anger he decides to leave the country but first he decides to visit her out of spite and say good bye. When he finds her, slowly he realizes something is not right. He goes in her room and the painting is there now he knows since the wheel chair is also there. Destiny won and they embrace and promise to love each other always.
This 1957 creation of emotions, anticipations and gratification is truly a
timeless concept. It touches everyone’s deepest feelings and stays in your mind and heart for years to come. One time in everyone's life there is a brief moment or a long deep space in time that mirrors this movie. Not in affairs of the flesh but in truly affairs of the spirit, of love. A love that possibly was not socially correct, impossible to pursue, or just not meant to be. That kind of affair leaves a secret desire in our lives. We can all relate to this movie during the time they were apart. We feel what they feel. And, if we lost our affair for ever we get satisfaction from these characters being able to find what they had lost. It also gives those of us, who have lost, hope that we may find it again.
It is the ability of this movie to capture a timeless audience which renders it magical and current. The settings of the movie in every important occasion contribute to the intensity of what the audience feels. They meet in a cruise ship. Ever heard of the saying two ships passing in the night? How totally romantic that is. The moon, the ocean, the stars make the perfect backdrop to the perfectly beautiful couple. Deborah Kerr is stunning. She carries herself as a queen, yet she is soft and sensual. With her looks and grace she projects excess within control. He is the perfect gentleman. Tall and handsome with perfect bedroom eyes, he embodies all the romance the scene is displaying.
Let’s keep moving across the ocean and arrive at their destination after they and we have already fallen in love. Italy is a country of romance, beauty and wine. In which this saintly, beautiful, sweet grandmother lives. We are already lost in the background and view the elderly sweet lady as a saint on a niche that embraces their love no matter what the real life consequences.
Back to New York. Busy, smoky, dark, exciting; completely the opposite of Italy. The perfect background for the two people, they are no longer in love with, to be standing there waiting. Their decent from the ship was no less than a walk through calvary. With their eyes focused on each other, they embraced the ones that were oblivious to the future.
Now the anticipation. New York again. Busy, noisy, inaccessible, and huge. Huge buildings that are insurmountable like the short distance she had to walk to reach her love. This is the perfect background for the scene when she goes to meet him. New York is at its best in the middle of the afternoon. Exciting yet dangerous as is their love. All of a sudden the excitement stops and the danger hits. We hear it but we don’t see that she is hurt. The absence of the actual accident scene showing adds to the suspense and anguish that we will feel when we see him alone in the tallest building in New York in 1957. We wait and wait and wait and no stunning lady coming out of the elevator. How sad we feel watching this handsome man feel so rejected. The music, the city, scenes are all in coordination to make us feel their pain.
Their final reunion is a perfect example of this manipulation. She is still beautiful. We see her in a sofa unable to move, sitting there on Christmas Eve alone. She is content in her ability to sustain herself without burdening him. We feel sad. When he comes in immediately we feel anticipation and hope. Lastly we feel joy. We feel all this in one scene.
This is a movie that no one with a heart, young or/and old can forget. I recomend for eveyone to see this movie at least once in a lifetime.