Narzeczona w tafli lodu, czyli jak kino mawia o nieprzeniknioności uczuć miłosnych („45 lat” Andrew Haigha)

Abstract

The subject of analysis in the article is the 2015 British film 45 Years (dir. Andrew Haigh), which is an adaptation of David Constantine’s novel In Another Country. The film presents an intimate image that, in a subtle way, talks about the complexity of feelings of love, constantly oscillate between the desire for intimate closeness and exclusiveness, and the fear of disappointment (longing for emotional fullness and a sense of failure). Inscribing the problem of the dialectical complexity of the emotional life of a man in the context of old age and transience seems unconventional and, therefore, particularly valuable in this film. An important theme in 45 Years, emphasised by the title itself, is the past; invisible on a daily basis, it lurks under the surface of the present. Its iconic (though only imaginary) representation is connected with the plot of the first, lost fiancée of the hero, whose remains – after half a century – are unexpectedly found on a Swiss glacier. The author of the article argues that the fact that it concerns a young woman’s body (preserved in a transparent substance in a strange coincidence), by virtue of intertextual implications, brings an archetypal element to the essentially prosaic story; this archetypal element has then far-reaching consequences in the symbolic plan of the film. Skilful reference to the fairy-tale motif of the ‘glass coffin’ allowed the British director for portraying in this audio-visual story, which talks about the emotional dramas of two elderly people, an image of these internal experiences that in their intimate subtlety remain impenetrable and inexpressible.