The Age of Love
Have you ever walked past an elderly person in the
street and wondered at their life, at what kinds of
things they did when they were young, and whether
their life was anything like your own? We often easily
forget that our "senior" citizens were young once too,
and shared thoughts, feelings, and experiences similar
to our own, as well as the cultural (and mostly
Western) presumptions and stereotypes that come with
the category of youth.
We are reminded of this by Innocence, the most
recent film by Paul Cox, a thoughtful Australian movie
maker who has found it difficult to achieve
recognition in America due to the perceived obscurity
of some of his subjects and the overtly "European"
feel of films. Innocence received a positive
response at Cannes in 1999, due to its effort to take
on issues around elderly romance that are not often
dealt with. The majority of "love" stories we are
exposed to in filmmaking succumb to the dominant
demographic of young to mid-thirties heterosexual
couples who experience all of the "appropriate" rites
of passage. The two leads in this tale of passion,
however, represent an element of our society that many
feel should be "beyond" all that youthful ardor and
moves beyond traditional romance and into the area of
elderly sexuality.
Cox delivers a tale of two separated lovers, Claire
(Julia Blake) and Andreas (Charles "Bud" Tingwell)
who have shared a strong passion and exuberant love
when they were young. Late in life they meet again and
rekindle the relationship and re-experience the flame
of young love from all those years ago. In their
renewed relationship, the pair deals not only with the
rush of emotions that accompany their affair, but also
the reactions of their family members and the society
around them, including Claire's husband.
At the beginning of the film (and their rediscovered
love), we are flung fairly quickly into the
now-elderly lovers' relationship, which has been
prompted by a letter from Andreas to Claire after many
years. The brief introduction to these two characters
that the film offers, however, without any chronicle
of their previous relationship, seems to cut short the
feelings that they might experience in such an
emotionally charged reunion. But still, the film's
narrative structure (largely told through
retrospection) allows us to delve further into their
past and realize the intensity of what they once had,
and this adequately compensates for the seemingly
rushed beginning. Prior to their meeting up again,
neither of the lovers has been particularly happy.
Andreas has been quite lonely as a widower.
Claire, on the other hand, is one half of a loveless
relationship of longevity and ultimately only
convenience. She has been suffocating in her marriage
to John (Terry Norris) for over 40 years. For Claire,
Andreas's letter is a lifeline, but her willingness to
re-engage with Andreas broaches questions of whether
she has ever really let go of Andreas' love, or
whether she rather simply suffers from a lack of love
in her marriage and is looking to Andreas to fill that
void. It is fascinating to observe two people who knew
each other intimately getting back together and
searching for what they once knew so well. Much time
has elapsed since they were last together, yet when
they meet decades of personal experiences collapse
between them and it is as if they were never apart.
Even so, the straight line of their re-discovered love
becomes an angst-ridden triangle once the John's
reaction is included. He treats the news of her
acquaintance and sexual liaison with Andreas as a
whimsical fantasy and it takes some time for the
impact of her "infidelity" to sink in and destabilise
the "rock" of his marriage. In a way, John represents
the complacency of time tested love and the fear of
change so late in life. In adding John's perspective
into the mix the focus of the film becomes his fear
that everything he knew so well (life, routine,
marriage) can so quickly change, when, presumably,
everything at his age should have been long since
sorted out.
In John, Innocence comments on the fragility of
male security, as he attempts to deal with the failure
of his marriage and the very real possibility that he
may lose what has been the bedrock of his adult life
for so long. It is only when this security is
threatened that he feels the need to state his need
for Claire. For someone like John a long-term
relationship is something that you simply,
uncomplicatedly have, rather than something that
needs constant care and attention. And this is the
film's real "message," that love must be cultivated,
and that "innocence" is to be cherished, sought out,
and protected throughout one's life.
Innocence offers a brave take on love, fidelity
and sexuality that often flies in the face of
traditional, age-defined preconceptions of all. The
title of this film refers not only to the innocence of
youth and the innocence of lost love, but also to the
untouchable state of raw passion and need, even in
people who, many assume, have long since stopped
"needing" such feelings. For Andreas and Claire, this
is not some return to innocence, but its re-discovery
and the realization that "innocence" is something
necessary throughout the course of all of our lives.
