本作の池に浮かぶ枯葉のショットを見た観客は、 "Jesse James"('39)で観客の心を震わせた外光の下でのカラー撮影が、4年後には芸術に仕立てられている様を目の当たりにして、映画史の風を感じる事でしょう。
そして、頓狂な風呂場のシーンには、フェリーニやマルセル・カルネも釘付けになるはずです。
友人に妻の肖像画を見せた主人公は、友人の妻そっくりだとしきりに説いてみせます。
それを受けた友人は、自分は主人公よりも31年あとに彼女を目にしたのだ、とたしなめるに留めます。思い出を美化する主人公を見守るわけです。
一見、唐突なヒューマンドラマの挿入として浮いて見えるシーンですが、思い出との向き合い方こそが本作を貫く主題であるわけです。
懐かしの女性と溶け合った"Gentleman's war"の時代が甘美な思い出として訴えてこようと、今と向き合わなければいけないわけです。
あなたが、Stiff upper lipな戦時下のロンドンで、カーチェイスを繰り広げようというアイディアに賛同する観客なのであれば、文句なしに星5を贈ってしまうはず。
"You hear about a thing you hope to see it, and then you see it."
"I'm marring you because I want to join the army and see the world... I'm marring you because I love watching you play polo... I'm marring you for 50 different reasons... and they all mean that's how I imagine my future husband."
"But, isn't she like Edith? See the resemblance?"
"Yes, there are somethings very striking... but you must not forget I saw Edith 31 years later than you. We grew old together, do you understand?"
"Yes, ofcourse, but she was exactly like her."
"The enemy is different, so you have to be different, too."
"By saying that you despised them, that you would be ashamed to fight on their side, and that you sooner accept defeat than victory, if it could only be won by those methods.
Clive, if you let yourself be defeated by them, just because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won't be any methods but Nazi methods. If you preech the rules of the game, while they use every faul and filthy trick against you, they'll laugh at you. They'll think you're weak, decadent! I thought so myself in 1919."
"I heard all that in the last war. They fought, fouled in and who won it?"
"I don't think you won it. We lost it, but you lost something, too. You forgot to learn the moral. Because victory was yours, you failed to learn your lesson 20 years ago, and now you have to pay the school fees again. Some of you will learn quicker than the others, some will never learn it -because you've been educated to be a gentleman and a sportsman in peace and in war. But Clive! Dear old Clive -this is not a gentleman's war. This time, you're fighting for your very existance against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain -Nazism. And if you lose, there won't be a return match next year, perhaps not even for a 100 years."
"How many agreements have been kept by the enemy since this war started?"
"In 1983, atleast I shall be able to say that 40 years ago, I was a fellow of enterprise!"
"I will invite him to dinner and he better accept."
"Now here is the lake, and I still haven't changed."
