“When I behold upon the night starred face.,huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.”女主角勞拉一邊沉浸在無法言及的隱秘情事中無法自拔，一邊淡淡地回答了這句濟(jì)慈的詩歌?！癛omance”，勞拉不停地沉吟著丈夫字謎的答案，若有所思。接著，勞拉迫不及待地打開了留聲機(jī)，房間里傳來了拉赫瑪尼諾夫的第二鋼琴協(xié)奏曲。

竊以為濟(jì)慈的這句詩歌是《相見恨晚》的題眼，又輔以拉赫瑪尼諾夫的節(jié)奏，古典文學(xué)與古典音樂作為引導(dǎo)者，似乎不經(jīng)意讓四十年代那個(gè)遠(yuǎn)去的年代蒙上了一層熟悉感。談及四十年代，印象中似乎往往是二戰(zhàn)為主背景下宏大史詩，連你儂我儂男女情深之事也被逃脫不了“大時(shí)代小人物”的命運(yùn)?！断嘁姾尥怼氛Q生于世界二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束的1945年，背景設(shè)為英國倫敦附近的城鎮(zhèn)，故事中已經(jīng)看不見戰(zhàn)火的硝煙，中產(chǎn)階級(jí)家庭的生活趨于平靜。在這一年之前，戰(zhàn)爭的介入，社會(huì)的動(dòng)蕩，使得人們往往關(guān)心于你死我活的社會(huì)焦點(diǎn)事件，糾結(jié)于個(gè)人生死存亡，可以說無論是個(gè)體還是社會(huì)都處于生死攸關(guān)的激變之中，而電影的敘事通常側(cè)重于強(qiáng)烈的戲劇沖突，往往表現(xiàn)驚心動(dòng)魄、人命關(guān)天的重大命題抑或個(gè)人坎坎坷坷的人生道路。戰(zhàn)爭的結(jié)束意味著轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)。西方尤其是以英國為首的國家逐漸向中產(chǎn)階級(jí)社會(huì)過渡，社會(huì)內(nèi)部呈現(xiàn)穩(wěn)定，大多數(shù)人達(dá)到溫飽。諸如失業(yè)等社會(huì)矛盾不再像戰(zhàn)時(shí)那樣突出，然而新的社會(huì)矛盾又出現(xiàn)了，《相見恨晚》中的女主角勞拉便在這樣的社會(huì)背景下應(yīng)運(yùn)而生。

女主角勞拉不僅僅代表著一個(gè)個(gè)體，她似乎是一個(gè)符號(hào)，一個(gè)象征，被創(chuàng)作者賦予了時(shí)代的靈魂。首先，她是一個(gè)中產(chǎn)階級(jí)家庭的家庭主婦。中產(chǎn)階級(jí)意味著什么，電影的種種細(xì)節(jié)都在像我們表明：她平時(shí)無所事事常常搭火車去鄰鎮(zhèn)購物看電影，在酒吧優(yōu)雅地喝一杯白蘭地吃一口曲奇餅。在家喜歡讀濟(jì)慈，聽拉赫瑪尼諾夫，被兒女催促帶著他們?nèi)タ锤鑴∫只螂s技表演?？梢哉f是物質(zhì)生活滿足，精神生活看上去也同樣富裕。其次，眾所周知，物質(zhì)文明的發(fā)達(dá)會(huì)帶來社會(huì)的異化和人與人之間的間離，盡管生活在繁華熱鬧的都市卻免不了難以消遣的孤獨(dú)，人與人之間每天不得不打交道，但真正的心靈溝通卻少而又少，人際關(guān)系的危機(jī)構(gòu)成了社會(huì)的障礙，這便是隨著社會(huì)發(fā)展而產(chǎn)生的新矛盾。一方面，影片開頭，老婦人看似熟絡(luò)親切的問候交談，實(shí)則為滿足自己的窺視欲和八卦心理，這引起了勞拉生理心理的雙重反應(yīng)。她對(duì)老婦人的絮叨顯得頭痛難忍，后又與丈夫抱怨“當(dāng)人們裝出一副很好的樣子來，是不是很惡心？”不僅如此，當(dāng)勞拉與哈威在街頭被熟人撞見一起吃飯時(shí)，勞拉還必須刻意劃清界限，擺出熱情寒暄的樣子，但一切卻都免不了淪為日后人們口中的談資。還有，哈威的朋友在意識(shí)到哈威帶女人來公寓時(shí)，不聽哈威解釋便把他趕出了房間。人際關(guān)系的危機(jī)，隱藏在每個(gè)人周圍，不帶真誠的交流，讓人心煩意亂。另一方面，在這種人際關(guān)系危機(jī)的矛盾之下，當(dāng)影片初始，哈威認(rèn)真地用手帕拭去勞拉淚眼中的那顆沙后，便注定了此種感情的不尋常，像是埋下了一顆真誠的情感種子，只待時(shí)機(jī)噴薄欲出，怕是生命中這種真誠的心靈溝通少之又少罷了，隨后男女主人公的六次相遇像是為之作注解。除了人際關(guān)系的危機(jī)，也不應(yīng)忽視個(gè)體內(nèi)心深處的危機(jī)。人類是唯一一種會(huì)探求生命意義的生物，這種探求在衣食無憂時(shí)會(huì)愈加突出，因?yàn)橹挥性谝率碂o憂的大前提之下，人們才會(huì)思考內(nèi)省類似的問題。勞拉也是如此，物質(zhì)生活的滿足并不代表生活的完美度，直到哈威拭去她眼睛中的沙粒，原本平靜的生活徹底被打破，情感的巨變使生活有了理智無法操控的波瀾。電影的情節(jié)線設(shè)置為兩個(gè)陌生男女的情感演進(jìn)，它將焦點(diǎn)從社會(huì)外在危機(jī)轉(zhuǎn)移到了人與人之間的內(nèi)部危機(jī)之中，將鏡頭對(duì)準(zhǔn)人與人之間的關(guān)系和他們內(nèi)心情感甚至于不成形的潛意識(shí)，這不得不說是時(shí)代的進(jìn)步，電影劇作模式的創(chuàng)新。

值得玩味的是，世人公認(rèn)英倫三島與法蘭西的風(fēng)情、伊比利亞半島的狂熱相比，少了浪漫與激情，顯得略為寡淡刻板。但導(dǎo)演大衛(wèi)?里恩則以這部1945年的早期作品打破了以往人們的慣有印象。影片中男女主人公的六次相遇堪稱經(jīng)典，貫穿始終。情感由一開始的無意識(shí)到自我察覺，躁動(dòng)的自我安慰，直至失去理智的一發(fā)不可收拾，期間借由臺(tái)詞、情節(jié)呈現(xiàn)出“發(fā)乎情，止于禮”的狀態(tài)，由迷醉激情到回歸道德的過程，體現(xiàn)出英國人不同于美國人的道德取舍，這種“導(dǎo)演手法”的取舍大致表現(xiàn)在兩個(gè)方面。一方面是外部的制約：影片開頭導(dǎo)演首先便選取了沉重的鐘聲與火車進(jìn)站的轟鳴聲，輔以拉赫瑪尼諾夫第二鋼琴協(xié)奏曲的開頭八小節(jié)沉重的旋律，這種景象象征著無時(shí)無刻的社會(huì)約束力。此外熟人時(shí)不時(shí)打擾了兩人正常的約會(huì)，讓他們不得不重新自省審視自己的行為等等也都有所體現(xiàn)。另一方面是自我約束，女主角的獨(dú)白貫穿其中，一直在刻意提醒自己重新回到正常軌道，重新回歸“母親”“妻子”的位置，一方面感慨“這種快樂不能持續(xù)”、被人撞見是“罪惡羞愧”的，一方面又自我安慰，“這次在車站能碰見他吧？”發(fā)誓“回到家中再也不見面了”，兩個(gè)人下周四又如約相見。細(xì)膩的情感借由臺(tái)詞呈現(xiàn)，實(shí)為妙矣。尤其是哈威在談及自己身為醫(yī)生的“預(yù)防醫(yī)學(xué)”理論時(shí)，其實(shí)也在潛意識(shí)里和盤托出自己對(duì)待這份感情的態(tài)度?！耙环N預(yù)防疾病的方法，值得50種治好的方法”，兩個(gè)人一直在小心翼翼地抵御著最后的防線，防微杜漸，以預(yù)防的姿態(tài)去處理這份屬于中年人的婚外情。

發(fā)乎情，止于禮，卻也只能留下滿滿的惆悵，不圓滿的結(jié)局。但是相比美國人的信馬由韁，日本人櫻花凋落般的東方式暗淡，英國人最終還是讓理性與真情占了上風(fēng)，留下了朦朧的光亮。剛才看到，有人引用了一句菲茨杰拉德。菲茨杰拉德說：“All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase—I love you.”（生活便是不斷朝‘我愛你’這個(gè)字眼靠近的過程，然后又不停地退卻），這個(gè)過程與電影中的開端結(jié)尾相呼應(yīng)。開端，火車駛過，淚眼中多了一顆沙。結(jié)尾，火車駛過，風(fēng)吹亂了頭發(fā)，擾亂了心緒，望穿秋水也只好止步前行，感慨一句相見恨晚罷了。

In her On Female Identity and Writing by Women, Judith Kegan Gardiner observes: “the word ‘identity is paradoxical in itself, meaning both sameness and distinctiveness, and its contradictions proliferate when it is applied to women” (Gardiner 347). In the post-war era, it was obvious that, more distinctiveness was added to women’s identity.
According to Arthur Marwick, “In general the war meant a new economic and social freedom for women, the experience of which could never be entirely lost” (Marwick 160). The war had an enduring effect of liberation for women in Britain, which manifested itself in various aspects of their lives. In her enlightening book, Only Half Way to Paradise: Women in Post-war Britain: 1945-1968, Elizabeth Wilson probes into the condition of post-war women from different angles. Although she is critical that women still faced discrimination, oppression and inequity in post-war Britain, she makes it clear that they had become increasingly liberal, since they had more opportunities to work, more sexual freedom, higher levels of education and so on, and this was due to a combination of many social factors.
Liberation was undoubtedly great for women because it meant less repression and oppression, equality and more possibilities in life. However, it may also have exacerbated women’s identity crisis by adding more “distinctiveness”. According to Erik H. Erikson, identity crisis is caused by the loss of “a sense of personal sameness and historical continuity” (Erikson 17). In terms of individuals in the group of women, although the liberation they enjoyed in the post-war era brought them more possibilities in life, it also meant that they faced various kinds of predicament in which their original roles were challenged, and this led to uncertainty about their identity. Brief Encounter, A Taste of Honey and The Killing of Sister George are three post-war films which delineated women’s identity crisis. Although the protagonists in these films have some particularity, their encounters still represent some of the possible aggravation of inner turmoil women’s liberation may have brought to individuals. This essay aims to explore the particularity of the plights of identity crisis faced by the protagonists in the three films under the background of the communal changes to women’s lives in the post-war era.
Brief Encounter, directed by David Lynn, is based on Coward Noel's one-act play, Still Life. It depicts the unenduring affair between Laura Jesson, a "happily-married" middle-class house wife and mother and Alec Harvey, a married doctor. The extremely well-received film was released in the immediate post-war year, 1945. During the 1940s, British women experienced a series of transformations under the influence of the war. The labour shortage brought about increasing opportunities of paid work for women, which led to a conflict with motherhood. Since many women were away from home to work, the government began to provide nurseries, “thereby relieving mothers of a burden central to ideal motherhood” (Lant 154). Meanwhile, sexuality became more open. The Second World War was “a very romantic war”, and part of the reason for this was that cinemas (where the two main characters used to date) and dance halls “provided the ideal territory for romantic encounters” (Bruley 114). The total birth rate was falling, while illegitimacy was on the increase, and divorce rate rose rapidly. Married women were no longer “icons of ‘decency and stability’” (Lant 155).
This is the history background of Brief Encounter. It belongs to an age that the image “ideal motherhood” was shaken; therefore Laura’s plight is also encountered by the female audiences at that time. The increasingly liberate social mode enabled them to question their traditional role of mother and wife in marriage and see the possibility of free themselves from it, but many of them could not take the step for reasons like the lack of income or dare not to break the moral code.
Laura is cast as a representation of the women at that time. Her identity crisis is led by the conflict between her awaking self-awareness and the social role of wife and mother which she has always been playing.
In her interior confession to her husband Fred, Laura states:
“You see, we are a happily married couple and must never forget that. This is my home. You are my husband and my children are upstairs in bed. I’m a happily married woman; or rather I was until a few weeks ago. This is my whole world, or it was until a few weeks ago.”
This monologue suggests that, before her encounter with Alec, Laura had identified herself as a wife and a mother, which was not exciting but definitely secure. Addressing the state of “happily married” which she “must never forget”, she is actually defending the identity under threat, and this reflects her dissatisfaction with the marriage in which her individuality is gradually being obliterated. Being a housewife, Laura regards her family as being her “whole world”. As a result, she has to spend most of her time in a house which seems to be so cramped that even the music from the radio can be “deafening”. This restricted domestic space has led to the insufficiency of individual space, which reinforces her social role of mother and wife, but consistently hinders her from being herself. Laura’s monotonous daily life as a housewife is also tedious. When Alec asks her if she comes to town every week, she explains that her regular Thursday schedule which brings about the affair is “not a very exciting routine, but it makes a change.” Moreover, there is some distance exists between Laura and her husband. Having no income, she is sustained by her husband who is described as “kindly, unemotional and not delicate at all” and “not musical at all”. In the film we don’t see he has any leisure activities other than playing crossword puzzles. However, Laura is cast conversely as sensitive and romantic. She goes to cinema every Thursday, borrows Kate O’ Brien’s novel from Boots, listens to classical music and is referred to Fred as a “poetry addict” who is quite familiar with Keats’ poems. The couple seems to lack common interest. Consequently, although Fred seems to be a considerate and understanding husband, he can never fulfil Laura’s demand for romanticism and passion. Their affection is very much based on kinship.
 These facts illustrate that, although marriage provides Laura with material things and a feeling of safety, it simultaneously represses her desire for individuality, and this has been the most significant contributor to Laura’s identity crisis.
The inevitability of the affair is implied in their first encounter. Laura thanks Alec for getting the grit out of her eyes, saying that: “Lucky for me you were here.” Alec answered: “Anybody could have done it.” The conversation ingeniously suggests that the affair is ineluctable for Laura because of the contradiction between her family role and desire, and this explains why even the main male character, Alec, is ambiguously constructed --- he can be “anybody”.
The reason for Alec to have captivated Laura is predominately that their relationship is beyond marriage, which enables him to cater to Laura’s need to be desired, not as a wife and a mother, but as a woman. When Laura and Alec bare their souls to each other for the first time in the boathouse, Alec says he loves Laura for her “wide eyes”, the way she smiles, her “shyness”, and the way she laughs at his jokes. His words indicate that it is Laura’s femininity that he adores. Some feminists have made observations about the contradiction between sexuality and motherhood, that the stereotype of mothers tends to be unsexy, and even in its aesthetic form, it is hard “to imagine a mother as ‘something else besides a mother’” (Lant 157). Therefore, the relationship outside marriage with Alec enables Laura to briefly escape from the role of mother and be loved for her herself, for being an individual rather than because her of husband’s obligation to love her simply because they are married.
The extra-marital affair with Alec is led by Laura’s identity crisis, and inversely aggravates the crisis since she finds that her familial identity, which provides her with security, is under threat. Laura realises the peril when it occurs to her that Alec will not tell his wife about their date: “Then the first awful feeling of danger swept over me.” The affair has brought about ambiguity and confusion in terms of her family role. After she lies to Fred, she refers to herself as “a stranger in the house”. Moreover, although motherhood can restrict Laura, the affair, which could possibly have caused her to abandon her children, still runs against her maternal instinct and brings about a sense of guilt. When her son, Bobbie, is knocked down by a car after her first date with Alec, she regards it as being her “fault”, “a sort of punishment” and “an awful, sinister warning”. Also, she thinks that a boy she met in the botanical park who looks like Bobbie should have given her “a pang of consciousness”. Thirdly, as a middle-class white woman, she fears that breaking the moral code could be a source of marginalisation, because her self-identification is also formed from other’s judgment. She is so afraid of the immoral affair being known that, at the end of the date with Alec, she looks around after getting on the train to see if people are looking at her “as if they could read my [her] secret thoughts.” When the affair is discovered by Alec’s friend, she supposes she has been laughed at and thinks of herself as being “cheap and low”. After this incident, Laura ends her relationship with Alec and goes back to her husband. Nevertheless her confusion about her identity grows deeper.
Similar to Brief Encounter, A Taste of Honey is a female-centred film adapted from a play of the same name written by Shelagh Delaney. The play was first produced on the 27th May 1958, while the film was released in 1961, which suggests that the film reflects the landscape of post-war Britain from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1960s. During that period, the trend of women’s employment did not decline, although women’s working lives were intertwined with child-rearing. Part-time jobs were more popular, especially with married women (Bruley 123), and importance began to be attached to education. Although being treated inequitably with boys, more girls, including those from working-class families, had a better chance of being educated. According to Sue Bruley, this was also a period when “slowly, signs of a liberalisation of attitudes regarding sex were appearing.” The Kinsey Report helped to “create a climate in which sexual activity was demystified and women’s enjoyment of sex more openly recognised” A survey conducted in 1956 revealed that “two-fifths of first sexual intercourse was occurring before marriage” Meanwhile, young people became “more self-aware and self-centred” as disciplines were less strictly forced by their parents” (Bruley 135). This also constituted a reason for teenagers to become more sexually active, which led to a higher rate of teenage pregnancy.
According to Erickson, adolescence is a period of identity crisis because, during the progression from childhood to adulthood, it is quite common that the physical and psychological transformation causes a loss of the “sense of personal sameness” and “historical continuity”. Teenage pregnancy, which was faced by an increasing number of young females in that era, undoubtedly added some complexity to this situation. The predicament confronted by Jo, the protagonist in A Taste of Honey, is fairly representative; at the age of 16, she is made pregnant by her black sailor boyfriend.
Apart from the combined reasons for the teenage identity crisis, there is some particularity in Jo’s case, which is the conflict between her wish to be independent and her desire for maternal solicitude, which has continued from her childhood. There is an obvious reversal between the roles of the mother, Helen, and her daughter. Jo is “the more responsible of the two” (Wandor 40). Being a single mother herself, Helen immerses herself in sexual relationships with men and constantly neglects Jo’s interests, since she believes, “In any case, bearing a child does not put you under an obligation to it.” Although Jo has expressed her will to be independent by wanting a room of her own, her desire for maternal affection, as well as her childish possessive instincts, prevent her from truly detaching herself from Helen. Consequently, she is hostile toward her mother’s lover, Peter, blaming him for “planning to run off with my [her] old women”, and feels abandoned when Helen finally marries Peter. What is more, although she moves out in the hope of being independent, it can be perceived that Jo is looking for similar maternal care rather than the independence of adulthood in her relationship with the two male characters, Jimmie and Geoff. Jimmie, the sailor who has sex with Jo and makes her pregnant, is “as mother-surrogate as much as lover” (Lovell 371). Jimmie helps Jo to carry the big cases, which should have been carried by Helen, off the bus when they move to a new flat, and applies a bandage to Jo’s injured knee. Rather than the pursuit of adulthood, their sexual behaviour is more of a compensation for Helen’s abandonment of Jo, since it happens after Helen sends Jo home alone from Blackpool after her bitter wrangle with Peter. Being homosexual, Geoff’s feminine characteristics make him equally proficient at domestic tasks. According to Lovell, like Jimmie, he provides Jo with “the ‘mothering’ which Helen refuses” (Lovell 372). As a result, the unattained maternal love prevents Jo from growing up, and thus deepens her identity crisis.
Moreover, Jo’s crisis is further exacerbated by her adolescence pregnancy. As Terry Lovell observes, at the age of 16, she is “poised between childhood and womanhood, precipitated into adulthood by her affair with Jimmie and her pregnancy” (Lovell 374). It is unquestionable that she cannot bear the responsibility of being a mother, having not completely got rid of childhood herself, and therefore she detests and fears the sudden shift of roles. When talking about breast-feeding, she says: “I’m not having a little animal nibbling at me. It’s cannibalistic.” Then she states, “I hate motherhood.” Also, having seen a “filthy” boy and a dead baby mouse, her sense of refusing to take responsibility for sexuality and motherhood is evoked: “…Think of the harm she does having children… A bit of love and a bit of lust and there’y are. We don’t ask for life; we have it thrust upon us.” Her reflection again indicates that she was not prepared for motherhood and regards it as being something “thrust upon” her. In addition, because Jimmie’s father’s is black, the possibility of the child having a dark skin colour constitutes another factor which leads to the instability of Jo’s identity. When she sees the doll Geoff brings from a clinic for her to “practice a few holds” which is modelled on the mainstream, white, she becomes angry and bursts into tears because “the colour is wrong”. Then she pounds the doll furiously and shouts. “I’ll bash its brain out! I’ll kill it!” Her extreme behaviour reveals her fear of being marginalised by having a black baby, and furthermore, the fear of motherhood itself. Subsequently, she desperately admits, “I don’t want this child! I don’t want to be a mother!” After Helen is thrown out by Peter, Jo ultimately abandons her relationship with Geoffrey and comes back to her mother. This again attests to her identity crisis; being a mother, Jo is not able to cut herself off from childhood.

Apart from the sameness of being play-adapted and women-centred, by directly depicting lesbianism, The Killing of Sister George expresses a much more radical attitude toward women’s sexuality than Brief Encounter and A Taste of Honey. It also touches on the female professional life, which was not mentioned in the last two films. The film was released in 1968, thus it is placed under the historical background of the 1960s, the last decade before the women’s liberation movement. There was an increase in the number of professional women during the 1960s, although they were still discriminated against. People’s attitude toward sexuality became more liberal than in the 1950s, which was suggested by the rising illegitimacy, the wide usage of contraceptive pills, and the availability of legal abortions to women (Bruley 137-139). Moreover, in the 1960s the male and female youth were “far more visually alike”, although the gender behaviour had not markedly changed (136). Lesbianism, which is centralised in The Killing of Sister George, still remained largely invisible. Therefore, the attitude toward women’s homosexuality expressed in the film is actually more radical than the social reality. Nevertheless, as the first commercial lesbian film, it still betrayed the growing tendency for homosexual women to face up to their role and begin to be gradually accepted by society, as the women’s liberation movement, in which lesbians began to claim their rights, began to warm up in 1969 (149), the following year after the release of this film.
        Different from Laura and Jo, the protagonist, June Buckridge, is a professional woman, an actress in a soap opera of BBC, and also a lesbian. It seems that she benefits from the increasingly liberal society. Having a decent job, she is able to be economically independent of men, and she has also asserted her homosexuality by cohabiting with her much younger girl friend, Alice. However, these elements also constitute the factors of her identity crisis.
June’s profession as an actress has led to her identity crisis, because of the blurring of the boundary between the role she plays and her own identity. In the film, June has played the role of Sister George, a district nurse in a TV soap named Applehurst, for four years. Its popularity has meant that June’s own identity has been replaced by her part, since all the people in the film call her George rather than using her own name. Also, according to Mercy Croft, June’s superior at the BBC, she “is Sister George and far more so than June Buckridge”. Therefore, June loses her own identity to her public role. In addition, June also unconsciously blurs the boundary between her part and herself because of their sharp contrast. Sister George is a much respected character in the soap opera. She represents the mainstream values of British society, while in reality, June is an outsider, an alcoholic, abusive and aggressive middle-aged lesbian. Rather than facing up to herself and resolving her problems, June chooses to make the boundary between her role and herself vague, thus evading the sense of marginalisation in her own identity. When she tells Alice that Sister George is to be killed in the soap opera, she uses “me” to refer to her part, saying, “They are going to murder me”. This line shows her confusion between her role and herself, attests to the blurring of the boundary, and indicates her anxiety about losing her part. For her, the killing of Sister George is the obliteration of her own identity in a disguised form, because the two have been muddled up with one another for so long. As a result, she feels the loss of continuity and sameness in her own identity. Therefore, her profession evokes her identity crisis while bringing her economic independence.
June’s homosexuality also worsens her identity crisis. In the film, there is no obvious discrimination in people’s attitude toward June’s lesbianism. Thus, the tension between the couple is produced by their inner turmoil rather than external pressure. In her conversation with Betty, a prostitute, June expresses her desire for “l(fā)ove and affection”. However, she has never been able to have this in her relationship with Alice. In her Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam refers to June as “an aggressive bully, a loudmouth dyke and an abusive lover”, and then points out that she is actually vulnerable and dignified (Halberstam 182). As a matter of fact, for June, controlling Alice physically and psychologically by abusing her is to get a sort of certainty about their relationship and herself. As Wandor observes, June’s domestic gender is male (Wandor 62). She has established something similar to masculine authority in their lesbian relationship. However, her loss of job leads to the disintegration of such authority, and consequently deepens her uncertainty about her identity.
        At the beginning of the film, the relationship between June and Alice is dominated by the former. The scene in which June forces Alice to eat her cigar butt reveals her initial domination, but also becomes a mark of the turning point in their power relationship. While chewing the cigar butt, Alice’s facial expression changes from disgust to enjoyment, and in this way, she makes the punishment a pleasure. Her behaviour signifies the loss of efficiency of June’s authority, as she states desperately, “Once you spoil something, you can never make it work again.” Significantly, this happens the first time June express her anxiety about losing her job, which reveals the impact of June’s job loss on their lesbian relationship. The change in their power relationship is partly caused by economic reasons. When Alice blames June for her frivolous behaviour in assaulting some nuns in a taxi, June says: “Kindly keep your foul-mouthed recollections to yourself and remember who pays the rent.” This denotes that June’s authority is based on her economic superiority to some degree, and is threatened by the possibility of losing her job. Alice answers: ‘Not for much longer, perhaps.” More importantly, their relationship changes because of June’s sense of inferiority after losing her part as Sister George. In fact, in her relationship with Alice, June has always used ferocity and brutality to disguise her inner vulnerability, and the trauma caused by the loss of her job actually makes her more dependent on Alice, and thus, June’s authority begins to collapse. When Alice finally leaves with Mrs. Croft, this signifies the end of June’s domestic role in the lesbian relationship. Interestingly, this happens after the crew’s farewell party for her, which indicates the end of her professional role. Having lost her professional and domestic roles, the continuity and sameness in her identity is destroyed. In the final scene, June walks into the TV studio, only to find that “even the bloody coffin is a fake”. Sitting in her ruined TV world, she desperately let out a “mooo!” like a cow. June’s reduction of herself to a non-human is evidence that she has totally sunk into an identity crisis.

It can be concluded from the above analysis that liberation does not necessarily means freedom for women. If women don’t look up to themselves and really question their role, liberation can pose threaten to the completeness of their identity. From the 1940s to the 1960s, although the social mode became increasingly liberal toward women, the three protagonists experienced the same plight of an identity crisis, caused by their inner turmoil rather than social circumstances in different forms. Therefore, to gain real freedom, apart from asserting their rights, it is equally important for women to go back to themselves, and question who they really are and what they really want.
                            Works Cited

Bruley, Sue. Women in Britain since 1900, London: Macmillan Press, 1999. Print.
Erikson, Erik. Identity: Youth and Crisis, New York City: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994. Print.
Gardiner, Judith Kegan. “On Female Identity and Writing by Women” Critical Inquiry, 8.2 (1981): 347-361. Web. 24 Apr. 2011.
Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Print.
Lant, Antonia. Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992. Print.
Lovell, Terry. “Landscapes and Stories in 1960s British Realism” Screen, 31:4 (1990): 357-376. Web 2 May. 2011.
Marwick, Elizabeth. Only Half Way to Paradise: Women in Post-war Britain: 1945-1968, London: Routledge, 1980. Print.
Wandor, Michelene. Post-war British Drama: Looking Back in Gender, London: Routledge, 2001. Print.

It all started on an ordinary day in the most ordinary place in the world...當(dāng)女主人公終于開始講述她自己的故事的時(shí)候,我知道這個(gè)故事是...my cup of tea...

他們從相識(shí)到告別不過幾個(gè)星期,不過一同渡過了幾個(gè)下午...但是他們心里明白或許又是有點(diǎn)混亂的...她和他之間的關(guān)系是無法確切定義的...是的,brief encounter 是最合適的描述...當(dāng)時(shí)光將一切沖淡,關(guān)于她和他之間的事,最妥貼的...不過就是這一場簡短的相遇了.

他終于還是說出了This is the beginning of the end...雖然大家從一開始就心知肚明,這是他們之間所有的基調(diào)...但當(dāng)他說出來的那刻,作為看客的我,還是落了淚的. 他們之間一定是有那一刻覺得彼此是如此靠近的,只是有些細(xì)碎的"意外"發(fā)生了,譬如:她被她的朋友在餐廳撞見她和他一道喝香檳; 又好比: 他的朋友提早回到了公寓,打斷了他們那唯一可能的獨(dú)處的機(jī)會(huì), 她倉惶離去時(shí)留下來的絲巾卻明白告訴了別人有個(gè)女人來過...于是她和他之間的所有戛然而止了，他們?cè)谙嘤鲞^后，各走各路...她告訴自己一切只是普通純粹的碰個(gè)面，但內(nèi)心卻是個(gè)做錯(cuò)了事的小女孩，還有少年時(shí)代玫瑰色的夢...

第一次看得時(shí)候，并沒有特別留意那個(gè)列車員和女掌柜之間的對(duì)話, 但其實(shí)他們之間也是一場相遇...Time and tide wait for no man...是的，總有那個(gè)最敏感的時(shí)刻，只是她和他都沒有把握住，于是他們之間只是...不過...除卻短暫的相遇，什么也沒有發(fā)生過。

她和他，一個(gè)固定碰頭的時(shí)間和地點(diǎn)，一座橋，一次游園，一段路，一段車程...還有火車.

最后她丈夫的那一句--Thank you for coming back to me...在長久相處的男女之間那些細(xì)微的變化其實(shí)是瞞不過彼此的眼睛的...她其實(shí)最清楚變化是什么時(shí)候發(fā)生的，她大約一直在冷眼旁觀著,在他還在自欺和掙扎的時(shí)候.因?yàn)樗浪L久的過去里一直有她的參與, 僅這一點(diǎn)就足以和那短暫的插曲相抗衡,更不要說其他的了...

I shall see all this again but without you...

      曾經(jīng)有一個(gè)問題在我的腦海里思索過，但至今不能有一個(gè)讓人清晰的定案。我在想，如果有一天，你生命中的真愛降臨在你眼前，而此時(shí)你卻已經(jīng)牽手他人，你會(huì)如何選擇？你選擇生活的繼續(xù)，還是選擇不顧一切跟真愛私奔。我很恐懼面對(duì)如此，所以希望能一次遇見對(duì)的人，而不是陷入糾纏。也許這世上的大多數(shù)人都是這么希望自己能如此被上天眷顧，但卻盡不如人意。
    你又是否有“相見恨晚”的感慨呢？所以當(dāng)我看見電影的名字叫此，就很難不想看它一看。一場人到中年的相知邂逅，看似浪漫平靜卻把兩個(gè)幸福的婚姻家庭推向面臨崩潰解散的悲劇邊緣。但結(jié)局也沒有逃出我的預(yù)料，它一如《廊橋遺夢》，一如《純真年代》，因愛承擔(dān)，因愛舍棄。
     女主人公勞拉眼里的一粒砂牽出了一場相見恨晚的邂逅。如果說人生是偶然，也正因?yàn)榕既辉炀土宋覀儗?duì)命中注定有必然的誤解。勞拉和亞力克多次的不期而遇給他們創(chuàng)造了彼此相處的機(jī)會(huì)，似乎也給了他們冥冥之中要注定發(fā)展的錯(cuò)覺?？赡苓@是注定，可能這是錯(cuò)覺，但不能否認(rèn)兩人是多么情投意合，多么相知默契，這難道不是一切愛情的開端嗎？在此我有個(gè)疑惑，難道他們當(dāng)初與自己的愛人相愛不也如此嗎？為何卻又判定中途相遇的人就是一生所愛？那前半生陪你走過，又給你幸福感覺的人是什么呢？所以，所謂真愛是多么難以定案啊，也因此我們的人生充滿著缺憾，也充滿一種美麗。
     其實(shí)生活的幸福已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)為了不易察覺的平淡，就算你的愛人曾經(jīng)跟你也是相知相愛而來，但愛情的熱烈總歸會(huì)趨于平淡，所以你會(huì)產(chǎn)生“這還是我當(dāng)年愛的人嗎”的猶豫和不確定。也許就在這時(shí)，一個(gè)懷著同樣心情的人無意闖進(jìn)你的生活，又有無數(shù)次的邂逅，煥發(fā)了你內(nèi)心對(duì)曾經(jīng)激情的渴望，于是你們陷入愛河。當(dāng)然，你們的情感是真摯的，是因?yàn)楸舜诵蕾p，彼此默契，而不僅僅是肉體的激情，但同時(shí)你們也經(jīng)受道德和精神的折磨，因?yàn)檫@是不被允許和寬恕的，你們有家庭和孩子，你對(duì)他們?nèi)砸灿袗邸Ｘ?zé)任已經(jīng)大于愛情。
     《廊橋遺夢》中的女主人公最終沒能放下丈夫和孩子跟攝影師走，《純真年代》中紐蘭最終因?yàn)槲椿槠藓透怪泻⒆拥耐炝魶]有和海倫一起走，勞拉也沒有選擇一走了之。因?yàn)樽吡擞肋h(yuǎn)也不能了之，不能了之一份責(zé)任和牽掛，以及負(fù)罪和愧疚。其實(shí)他們的另一半都洞察了自己愛人的糾結(jié)和不舍，但他們都用最明智的方式挽留了愛人，那就是家庭和寬恕。
    因此，有些感情它只能埋藏在心底，也許你會(huì)悲傷，你會(huì)遺憾，但至少你的幸福里沒有罪惡和歉疚。我們需要偉大，需要一種犧牲和奉獻(xiàn)，因?yàn)橐磺械囊磺?，是我們相見恨晚。如果你在我說“我愿意”的時(shí)候出現(xiàn)，我會(huì)義無返顧跟你走，可是你出現(xiàn)的時(shí)候卻是孩子和愛人在家等我的時(shí)候，那我又能怎樣呢？
    你就像是我眼里的一粒砂，刺痛神經(jīng)，飽含淚水，便將你永留眼中，深埋心底一份永恒的灼痛。而用眼淚把你送走，留下一份讓人無法忘懷的回憶。

Laura靜靜不說話的表情有一種憂郁的美，沒有佩戴耳環(huán)，也沒有其他明顯的配飾，高挑苗條的身形，整齊優(yōu)雅的發(fā)型，還有那雙會(huì)說話的眼睛，已經(jīng)讓她足夠美麗。

整個(gè)影片都是Laura的回憶，在車站送走了讓自己心動(dòng)的人，然后把整個(gè)故事都回憶一遍，這樣算是給這段感情一個(gè)交代吧。而兩人全程都沒有身體上的越軌行為，讓這段意外而來的感情更加單純。

在一起的最后一天，兩個(gè)人只是一起吃飯，開車兜風(fēng)，去了曾經(jīng)去過的小橋。并沒有什么特別的紀(jì)念性的舉動(dòng)，也沒有什么實(shí)質(zhì)性的承諾。假如你知道，這是你跟心上人在一起的最后一天，往后漫長的幾十年里，你們幾乎再無見面的可能，你依然什么也做不了，只能任由最后的幾個(gè)小時(shí)這樣流淌，流淌。

最后的一幕，Laura的回憶結(jié)束了，忍不住哭了起來，丈夫溫柔地抱住她，說歡迎她回來。（這還真像我小時(shí)候讀到過的一個(gè)小故事，故事里女孩子出軌了，但是最后回到了男友身邊，男友也是這樣溫柔地抱過，以一種看透一切的心態(tài)接納了她。）

一段單純的婚外情，意外地來，靜靜地走了。這算是最好的結(jié)局、最明智的選擇了吧，短暫的相處過，有過快樂和煎熬，最后互相原諒，互相遠(yuǎn)離。我喜歡Laura探出火車窗，對(duì)Alec說的那句"If you forgive me, I will forgive you"。愛過的人要心平氣和地道別，多么不容易。