Mark Romanek created a film that walked a tightwire of emotion as it dealt with incredibly depth of emotion and the weight of mortality. He drew heavily from the novel of the same name written by Kazuo Ishiguro. He even considered not directing it because he felt it was such a great piece of art as a novel. But it moved him, and he felt that he had never seen this kind of story on screen before and thus pursued creating the film. His touch creates a tone for the film based on each character and their relationship to death and life.
He does this by creating space, breathing room for these very heavy feelings to live without being interrupted by quick cuts. Romanek was willing to keep his camera on a subject for longer than many would feel comfortable in order to create the understanding for the audience that every frame moving forward is a frame that takes us closer to the inevitable death of the characters. It gives us the space to understand that we are all on the same journey in life, and the extra time pursues the audience in a way to ask them to consider their own mortality and how they treat each moment either by rushing or fully living in it.
Technically, Romanek does so by using silence in the film. Examples include when Tommy confesses by not confessing in the woods that he loves Kathy even though he’s chosen Ruth. The camera stays on the characters to see their emotional life, though their words don’t fulfill what they are experiencing. Again we see the silence in the van with Kathy as she is leaving the cottage home to become a carer. She can’t even speak or make a sound about how hurt she is, or on her car ride into see the patient she is caring for there is only silence with Kathy.
Romanek also uses a great deal of space in his compositions visually. We see this as the camera begins to pull out on Kathy with the nurse at the hospital just before her donor completes. They again with the boat on the beach as the three arrive at the shore together and Tommy is drowned out by the massive scale of the beach and the land he must cover to get to the boat. These images create the loneliness that these characters feel in life as they know they are only here for a short time. Thus, how each character reacts in the space tells us everything we need to know about who they are. The perfect example being Tommy running towards the boat all by himself. It shows his heart and his desire to live life and not be on the sidelines.
The director pieces together a film as if laying one stone at a time for the characters to gently step upon and ride until they come to the next stone. And ultimately the arrival point is death, but somehow Romanek finds the life within these seemingly horrible circumstances. He creates the space and time to be able to show life for the opportunity it can be and how easily it can slip through one’s hands.
