Das Ende einer Affäre

Look at the comments on this site. There's pretty much a perfect split between people who think the film is unrelentingly dull with no redeeming features, and people who think the film is an amazing achievement. I fall into the latter category, and can't for the life of me figure out the former.

This is not an action film. There is no violence. There are no thrills, chills, spills, or anything along those lines. There are three terrific characters, there is an amazingly romantic relationship, and there are superb performances. There is a wonderful director who keeps everything tightly reigned in. There is nothing superfluous in this film. It is perfect.

Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) is a novelist who meets beautiful Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore) at a party hosted by her husband Henry (Stephen Rea), whom Bendrix is researching for a book. In no time at all, Sarah and Maurice begin a tempestuous and passionate affair which continues through World War II, until Sarah breaks it off suddenly after an air raid which nearly took Bendrix's life. A chance encounter with Henry two years later brings Bendrix and Sarah together again, and they rekindle their affair as the truth about that air raid is revealed.

A nice enough story on its own. But what makes this film great is the approach that Jordan takes (or perhaps it's not his approach... I'm not familiar with either the novel by Graham Greene or the 1955 film). The opening line of the film is typed by Bendrix onto a clean sheet of paper: "This is a diary of hate." It is only at the end of the film that the viewer understands who it is that Bendrix hates, and why. The story is a dramatization of what Bendrix is writing.

First, he tells us about 1946, when he just happened to see Henry walking in the rain. It's this moment that opens the door for Bendrix, and for us, into his own past. Then Bendrix proceeds to interweave his recent experiences of 1946 with events that transpired during the War. That gives us three distinct time frames for the film, which are introduced to the viewer in reverse chronological order.

Also, it is useful to remember that everything we see on screen (with the exception of several scenes of Bendrix typing away) is a depiction of what Bendrix writes. The entire film is told from Bendrix's point-of -view. This allows us two things: 1) more intimate access to the inner workings of such a fascinating character, and 2) it allows us to enjoy the mystery element of the story much more. If you'll notice, all of the best mysteries tend to have single-character POVs. Look at Chinatown, or The Maltese Falcon. Splitting the POV tends to give audiences information which they should not get before the main character does.

Not that this film is a mystery. There is a mystery in it, which is central to the plot and to Bendrix's situation, but I wouldn't call the film itself a mystery.

What makes this film great is its understatement. It is a very English film, and the characters and performances are all very English. Emotions are fiercely felt but subtly expressed. That makes it highly demanding of its audience, but even more rewarding. It also explains why so many call the film boring. Sarah was described as an ice queen in one review here, and Bendrix was called shallow. Like most reviews (including this one), those comments say a lot more about the people who wrote them then they do about their purported subject. Sarah is intensely passionate, Bendrix is a layered and complex character.

So, not for all tastes, but a brilliant film. Better than any and all of the Best Picture noms of 1999.

First, my complaint. I saw "The End of the Affair" on DVD, and although the picture is always exquisite, the dialog in quiet scenes is sometimes impossible to understand. We had to resort to using the "subtitles" feature on the DVD to understand dialog in two key scenes. Fortunately you can easily do this on the DVD.

The story is set in London in WWII, spanning 1939 through 1946. I did not see the 1955 movie of the same name, but one critic described it, in part...

"When I thought the film had come so far to bring so much of human existence, with all its emotions, philosophy, belief, and religion to the fore, the film found more fertile ground. The relationships are complicated, and the nature of faith, God, sin, and belief become part of the complex mix, along with the very human desire to do the right thing. Sarah most particularly must struggle with these age old questions as she searches from sources of different, even contradictory viewpoints. The dilemmas and questions all of us ask at one time or another are dealt with in a detailed manner, without passing along the answer to everything. What could have been trite turned out to be a film much more than the premise, and even more than the sum of its parts."

All I can say is "amen" to that for the 1999 version. I found it to be a totally absorbing film and rate it a solid "7" of "10".

Love and the spiritual (i.e. inner) life have rarely been better portrayed! Graham Greene's novel has been translated to cinematic imagery with an almost religious devotion. It isn't easy to make profound and meaningful experience so immediate and felt as this film does. Watching it on video...a second viewing...I was even more deeply moved than the first time around.

Julianne Moore, very much on the big screen these days (and for good reason), gives another of her splendid performances, this time as Sarah Miles, a middle-class English woman, married to a good, but dull man who takes her for granted. Her encounter with Maurice Bendrix (played to a T by the consummate actor, Ralph Fiennes) is electric and sets in motion an affair of deep consequence...for all three people involved. Stephan Rea as Henry Miles, Sarah's husband, trapped in his desire, but inability to fulfill the emotional and sexual needs of his much-loved wife, is another convincing and touching portrayal.

The spiritual aspects expressed in the film, reflect the life-long struggle of Grahame between his Catholicism and his doubts. The deep pulls of each character toward both personal and impersonal love give the film a dimension and an honesty that reward the "participant" (for that's how potent the film is) with an indelible human experience.

To Neil Jordan, the director, my wholehearted gratitude for his sensitive, nuanced presentation of this beautiful film.

This film tells the story of a wartime love affair between Maurice, a successful, cynical and rather callous novelist, and Sarah, the beautiful but neglected wife of a dull senior civil servant. She tends to believe in the supernatural, he does not, but both are spurred on by the danger of both discovery and the bombs raining down on London. Perversely, when her husband confides to Maurice his suspicion that Sarah is having an affair, Maurice hires a private detective to investigate, in effect, himself. In the end, it is God who decrees the finale, not the characters, who accommodate as best they can to their destinies.

Do we really care? This is not easy to answer. Maurice, the narrator, is a prize prick, unfeeling of others, concentrated on his misery and his work, yet obsessively jealous. Sarah provides a focus for his substantial sex drive but he does develop an affection for her. Sarah, on the other hand, clearly likes a good bonk as well, but she needs the relationship to full the void left by her husband's emotional absence, and Maurice is too self-centred to be a real soulmate. She is also quite a nice person in comparison with nasty bitter old Maurice. So yes, we are sorry for her. We have to admire Maurice for being honest enough to tell the story but there is an air of self-flagellation about it.

As a film, this is a terrific piece of work, directed by the Irish director Neil Jordan who was responsible for "The Crying Game". Greene is a very cinematic novelist - at last count there were at least 40 screen versions of his works - and Jordan has very cleverly used a present - flashback - present and then forward technique to tell the story from both Maurice's and Sarah's viewpoint. The gloom and danger of wartime London is effectively invoked but there was a bit of overkill in having it rain almost continuously from 1939 to 1945 (London has less rain days than Sydney!) It struck me early on that Ralph Fiennes was by no means inevitable in the part - I was reminded of the early Sam Neill. His character is really rather empty - a man whose only real commitments are to his work and sex. Julianne Moore, delightfully bad as Mrs Cheveley in "An Ideal Husband", and delightfully slapstick as the childish Cora in "Cookie's" Fortune", is much more sympathetic here. Stephen Rea (a Jordan favourite) as the cuckold is the most sympathetic of the lot or at least the most self-aware. He gives us a wonderful portrayal of stitched up dismay and yet it does not seem beyond the bounds of credibility that, knowing of the affair, he should invite Maurice to come and live with them towards the end.

Greeneland is a pretty bleak place, but a couple of apparent miracles brighten things up. Greene clearly thought God had a sense of humour. The novel is said to be semi-autobiographical, but the real affair Greene had with the wife of a wealthy businessman, while no doubt equally painful, did not end so melodramatically as the novel. Looking at a biography of Greene by Michael Shelden I note that Catherine Walston, whose relationship with Greene was the chief inspiration for "The End of the Affair," died in 1978, aged 62, 13 years before Greene. According to Shelden, Catherine refused to see Greene on her deathbed because she didn't want him to see how sick she was. The affair itself petered out in the early fifties, though they remained in touch. Henry Walston, it seemed, asserted himself and demanded that Catherine cut down on her contact with Greene. Greene went overseas to find danger and forget, to Vietnam and elsewhere, and these trips produced at least one more major novel, "The Quiet American." However Greene's career as a writer peaked with "The End of the Affair." His later work is interesting and readable, but never again did he reach the same emotional depths and heights.

Greene is often said to be a Catholic novelist but on the basis of this work at least he wasn't a great pitchman for the Almighty. Greene was, however, an eloquent portrayer of spiritual suffering and this aspect has been effectively brought to the screen by Neil Jordan. Perhaps it takes an Irishman to understand an English Catholic.

This is an engrossing tale of love, passion and betrayal invloving three star-crossed lovers. Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) is a man haunted by jealousy and pain over an affair he had with the wife of one of his friends, Henry Miles (Stephen Rea). The affair has been over for two years when a chance encounter with Miles takes Bendrix to his house where he once again encounters Sarah (Julianne Moore). The obsession for her returns when Henry tells him that he suspects that Sarah is having an affair. At hearing this Maurice gets jealous, thinking that he has been replaced as her paramour. What follows is a complex and tangled web of suspicion, jealousy and dolor.

This is a wonderfully complicated story that opens slowly like a flower. It is a first person narrative delivered by Bendrix and it gets more intriguing as the film progresses. The use of flashbacks is subtlety effective, where the realizations about misinterpretations come not from the dialogue, but from seeing the same scene from two perspectives. The love scenes are sensuously done and the general tone of the film is poignant and sensitive.

The film was nicely photographed with various filters to give it an old feel without losing the richness. Director Neil Jordan did a fine job of giving the film a genuine look of the period with proper English costumes from the 1940's.

Ralph Fiennes was excellent as the jealous lover. He played the character as civilized and staid with molten lava just beneath the surface. He was masterful at conveying strong emotion with a sideways glance or hand gesture without losing his composure.

Julianne Moore has added another fabulous dramatic performance to her resume as Sarah. She played the part with fatalistic passion, victimized by vortex of events she felt powerless to control.

Stephen Rea also shined as the impassive cuckold. Rea tends to be very understated in his portrayals, often too much so. But he was the perfect choice for the hapless Miles; so intellectual, withdrawn and defenseless. His phlegmatic response upon being confronted by Bendrix about their affair, showed a resigned helplessness that was both pathetic and believable.

I enjoyed this film immensely and gave it a 9/10. It is finespun yet powerful. It takes its time unfolding, so if you like pace this film might test your patience. But if you enjoy a good old fashioned steamy love triangle, this film will do nicely.