Terence Davies’s melancholic melodrama betrays his admiration for the films of Max Ophüls, Douglas Sirk and David Lean. In a series of bewitching images, the British filmmaker portrays a crucial day in the life of 40-year-old Hester (Rachel Weisz), who succumbs to her passion for former RAF pilot Freddie and, in the convention-bound early 1950s, abandons a secure existence by her older husband’s side.
To mark the centenary of the birth of Terence Rattigan, leading British filmmaker Terence Davies was asked to adapt one of playwright’s works for the screen. His choice of The Deep Blue Sea reflected his own creative preoccupations (loneliness, frustrated desire), as well as his fondness for dramas with a woman at their centre. In Davies’ elegant and emotionally charged film, with its wealth of compositional detail and a narrative structure reminiscent of the meanderings of memory, we can detect the influence of Max Ophüls, Douglas Sirk and David Lean. It describes, in beautiful images, the fateful day in the life of 40-year-old Hester (Rachel Weisz) when she falls in love with ex-RAF pilot Freddie and, defying the narrow conventions of early 1950s Britain, breaks free of a safe but dull marriage to an older man.
98 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Terence Davies
/ Screenplay Terence Davies
/ Dir. of Photography Florian Hoffmeister
/ Editor David Charap
/ Producer Sean O’Connor, Kate Ogborn
/ Production Camberwell / Fly Film Production
/ Cast Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, Ann Mitchell, Jolyon Coy, Karl Johnson
/ Contact Protagonist Pictures
Terence Davies (b. 1945, Liverpool) graduated from London’s National Film School. His acclaimed feature debut The Terence Davies Trilogy (1984), composed of short films from 1976-83, screened at a number of world festivals. His breakthrough feature, also shot in his hometown, was Distant Voices, Quiet Lives (1988), which won the Locarno festival, took the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes, and was nominated for five European Film Awards. Davies also competed at Cannes with the films The Long Day Closes (1992) and The Neon Bible (1995), the latter starring the outstanding Gena Rowlands. He then cast Gillian Anderson in the lead in The House of Mirth (2000). He returned to Cannes in 2008 with the documentary Of Time and the City, screened in the Open Eyes section at KVIFF 2008.
Protagonist Pictures
48-48 Great Portland Stcy, W1W 7NB, London
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 207 734 9000
E-mail: [email protected]
First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.
