THE SEA by Stephen Brown

The 25^th Galway Film Fleadh came to a close with The Sea, directed by Stephen Brown and based on a novel by John Banville, who also wrote the screenplay. It is the story of Max Morden, a middle aged man who tries to recover from his wife’s death by visiting the Irish village where he used to spend his summer holiday. There, three periods of his life intertwine, as he recalls the loss of innocence he experienced one summer as a twelve year old boy, as he remembers his more recent past and his final moments with his dying wife and as he lives the present as a guest at a house he was in before and deals with his pain by loosely working on a book about Bonnard but mostly drinking himself unconscious every night.

While narratively speaking this adaptation may not be as compelling or thematically engaging as the book, the film cannot be faulted on a production level. Everything from costume to music, of which the violin solos by Hilary Hahn are worthy of an honourable mention, seem just right as elements in a compact film which also never seems to falter under the weight of its complex narrative and the often troublesome parallel storyline structure. Here, this structure could have proved particularly tricky, as it aims to blend together three different time periods in the life of one character.

The photography, however, is truly delightful and full of tasteful visual touches. For instance, when we are brought back in time to the mid-fifties to witness Max’s own childhood, the camera moves about more playfully and a warmer light is used. On the contrary, when we see Max with his ill-fated wife, the colours are much more opaque. Different still, the way the present times are shot, Max is mostly surrounded by darkness and shadows whether he is in the boarding school which was the setting for many of the memories which he recalls, or whether it is the bar where he spends his nights. All these different styles of lighting and photography convey Max’s inner feelings according to the time of his life which they portray.

The character of Max is not necessarily likeable; he is mostly cold hearted and selfish. When we are first introduced to him, however, we are almost forced to feel sorry for him and for the way in which while intoxicated he plans to run into the sea and quite possibly drown himself to death only to fall on his back as soon as he reaches the water, and there he stays unable to move and looking absolutely helpless. He is undoubtedly a troubled soul, but it’s hard to side with him in his arguments with his wife, as he selfishly recalls a past lover of hers while she comprehensively pays little attention to him and fails to even try to comfort his insignificant insecurities. Much less do we understand how or even why he could be so ignorant towards his caring daughter. After he ends a conversation with her on the phone, the owner of the house Miss Vavassour points out that she sounded nice, and he replies ‘she is nice. That’s the trouble.’

Max is brought to the screen by Ciaran Hinds in an admirably understated way. Charlotte Rampling is very charming as the old fashioned owner of the boarding house and she too chooses to play her role quietly. This way of them underplaying their relationship adds mystery regarding what past events they may have shared. As well as that, there is an underlying air of melancholy which these performances convey, a sort of stable helplessness and inevitable unhappiness about times gone by and regrets that may have changed the course of a whole lifetime; this is proved in fact by the way in which the performances in the childhood sequences are more lenient towards giddiness, a feeling which almost seems untrue due to our knowledge of the present time Max being a perennial cynic.

Ultimately, The Sea is about memories, and more importantly the memories from which we cannot run away. While it may not be the haunting experience that it perhaps should have been, it is nevertheless thought provoking in its simplicity and it is infinitely more rewarding than a film like The Great Gatsby, which could really only be praised for its visuals. Brown’s film is neither pretentious nor shallow; it is a comfortable in between – although perhaps he may have been right when in his pre-screening introduction he invited the audience in attendance to ‘watch the film but read the book too’.