"Do you like Brahms?"
Tales of
star-crossed love are never fun, even when they’re great film. I’m not sure
that Goodbye Again is great film, but it’s certainly very
good. (A distinction that’s important to me, for some reason. The films that go in my great category are pretty few and far between).
Despite its
pacing and acting flaws, Goodbye Again is
definitely worth seeing. If only because Ingrid Bergman is eternally fabulous,
talented, brave, and luminously beautiful. She is undoubtedly the best thing about this
film, and it’s her honest, complex, and authentic performance that will be my
lasting impression of Goodbye Again.
Bergman
stars as Paula, a successful and
attractive forty-year-old woman who’s convinced that she’s past her prime. Her
lover of five years, Roget (the magnetic yet odious Yves Montand), is a serial womaniser who’s honest
about his philandering ways but, despite his professed love for Paula, is too
selfish to settle down. Cupid throws a stray dart in the form of a much younger man
who falls hard for the sensual and sympathetic Paula. Philip van der Besh (an
unbelievably tall and skinny Anthony Perkins) is an undermotivated law student
whose biggest concern in life is that he’s never been in love. He begins to
pursue Paula, to her initial distress, and then to her increasing confusion as
she realises that the adoring Philip has a passion for her that the absent
Roget will never have. When Roget leaves the country for ten days, they begin an affair. However, they soon realise that the prevailing social
mores mean that Paula’s behaviour is a scandal, and the new couple are ostracised even as their differences begin to strain the relationship.
As you've probably figured out, there's no happy ending here. The real tragedy
of the story lies in the fact that there are no right answers to Paula’s
question of which man she should live with. We soon see that even without the crushing
social prejudice, the loving and yet mismatched relationship between Paula and Philip
is too unstable to last. Yet it's very clear that a life with the unfaithful Roget is a kind of a death of the heart for her - a sad existence as a second-place, back-up lover, made possible only by the corrupt and inequitable gender politics of the day.
The final
scene will break your heart. I sat there like an idiot, a handful of popcorn
poised halfway to my mouth, feeling as if the director had punched me in the
stomach.
The core of
the film is Bergman, no question about it. Her honest, transparent, and complex
performance proves (if there was any doubt) that she is an actress of phenomenal
talent and dedication. However, Anthony Perkins delivers a disappointingly uneven
performance. He has a strange mercurial quality, where childishness and menace,
naivety and darkness intermingle. His characterisation slips at crucial moments
– happiness, especially, appears forced. Magnetic, oddly sinister, boyish,
naïve, intense, unstable: it’s just too all-over-the-place to be a good
performance. Which is a shame, because it could have been, and it almost is.
The musical
theme is a big star here. Taken straight from Brahms’ 3rd symphony,
is suitably melodramatic, rich and heavy, and its repetition would get tedious
if it wasn’t so exquisitely, achingly beautiful.
Despite its flaws, Goodbye Again gets the thumbs-up from me, and I'd recommend it for the sole reason of seeing Ingrid Bergman work her magic.
source
For all Ingrid Bergman posts, click here.
