Music to the years

I was never really one for lyrics. For me, words became mere devices to provide music its physicality: like clothes needlessly humanising a bare body. It took me years to realise that my favourite childhood Bollywood songs ( Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai?, Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast ) were actually criminally catchy, eve-teasing anthems.

Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) suffers from an identical disorder in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years . For four-and-a-half decades, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes was her happy song. It had to be. Its slow-dance baritone reeked of romantic beginnings. After all, Fred Astaire had waltz-walked with Ginger Rogers to this in the 1935 musical, Roberta , before their famous wedding-proposal “handshake”. Perhaps their elegance led a young, dewy-eyed Kate to let this number score her first dance with husband Geoff (Tom Courtenay) 45 years ago. It became their song. It had to be. She never did notice its words. A cinematic cloak hid what lay beneath: a melancholic ballad of incomplete love.

From the crescendo,

My Love Has Gone Away / I Am Without My Love , to the final flourish,

When A Lovely Flame Dies / Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, it took Kate a lifetime to clear the smokescreen. To recognise that her beginning had been his end. She had known about the accidental death of his ex-flame, Katya. But she didn’t quite know why he would always close his eyes while making love. She didn’t quite know about his carousel slide projector in the loft: they never took photos, what did he need it for? She didn’t quite know why he insisted on a particular perfume, or on a childless life. She didn’t quite know about his life before her. She didn’t quite know him at all.

On the concluding note of “their song” during their 45th anniversary party, Geoff fell for Kate hard. Finally. And Kate fell away from Geoff, harder. Her eyes glisten with tears during their last dance — to a melody that made her heart soar, to verses that make her soul sore. Tears that Karen (Brit Marling) sheds only seven years into her marriage with Ian (Michael Pitt) in Mike Cahill’s sci-fi drama,

I Origins .

His pining assumes a more modern language. She catches him masturbating furiously to photos of his deceased ex-girlfriend, Sofi (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). Karen had always known she was his second shot. But being second choice was harder to swallow. Like Kate, she found validation in being the ‘healer’: the caring one, the one gathering pieces of love from her partner’s broken heart. The cruder term for it, I believe, is “rebound” — some of which assume the serendipity of one-night stands, and others the sanctity of lifelong unions.

Neelam Mehra’s (Shefali Shah) confrontation with history in Zoya Akhtar’s

Dil Dhadakne Do is less of an epiphany. Her 30 years with Kamal (Anil Kapoor) are just like the cruise ship chosen for the occasion: glossy, efficient, and all at sea. She has turned a blind eye to all his Sofis and Katyas. They live from one social do to another, stopping only to scoff at their own conscience. “Why are you acting? There’s nobody watching,” she chides Kamal privately in the bedroom after his jubilant speech. While old Geoff discovers Kate’s predicament through his own apologetic speech, it takes Kamal to reach the brink of bankruptcy to appreciate Neelam. “I live each day wondering when you’ll leave me,” she screams, as only a housewife would, with nowhere else to go. Her perceptive son (Ranveer Singh) points this out: a jolt that becomes Neelam Mehra’s humbling last-dance, caught-red-handed moment.

I’d like to believe that Kate stuck with Geoff after a lifetime of unknowingly surrogating for his only soul-mate; just like Karen indulges Ian to help him achieve closure; and just like Dil Dhadakne Do ends on Kamal and Neelam’s smiling faces. Perhaps some rebounds are fortuitous ‘forevers’.

But in real life, it’s the “ever after” that endures. There is no final frame. While fantasising about the reel future of these couples, I didn’t pay heed to one closer to home. Or, at home. An elaborate bouquet of lilies was delivered to my doorstep recently. For my mother. Sent by my father, on their 40th wedding anniversary. An adoring gesture.

Only, they aren’t together anymore. The reason isn’t dramatic, it’s just a reason. But these wilting lilies could well be the poster of their own 40 Years .

The song, I believe they often danced to, is a popular Beatles’ classic. A peppy one. And then, I identified its lyrics: Oh Please / Say To Me / You’ll Let Me Be Your Man / You’ll Let Me Hold Your Hand .

The writer is a freelance film critic, writer and habitual solo traveller