I simply couldn’t bring myself to view the movie again, not because I dislike it so much, but because it brings out so much angst that even now, I still feel the profound emotions I felt then. Until now, while thinking about it, I could still feel raw anguish towards the leads and the story.
It was many summers ago, for want of nothing better to do, I slipped a betamax tape I found lying on the sofa in the player. It turned out to be The Bridges of Madison County rented by my kid brother.
At that time, the movie was highly controversial and was banned and labeled pornographic by MTRCB.
In those days, I was very impressionable and viewed the world in black and white. If I had any other tape to watch, I wouldn’t have chosen that film. But since I was bored, I just slipped the tape into the player without thinking.
I ended up being glued on the screen for almost two hours. Thirty minutes after the closing credits rolled across the screen, I was still sobbing unceasingly with my eyes turning red and swollen. I decided to remain in the house for the rest of the day for fear of getting heckled by friends for being such a crybaby.
This movie changed my outlook on relationships.
Clint Eastwood himself produced, directed and starred in The Bridges of Madison County. The controversy surrounding this for-adults-only film stemmed from the nude scene of Meryl Streep (as leading lady) and Clint Eastwood.
Eastwood was Robert Kincaid, a writer-photographer for National Geographic. Streep was Francesca Johnson, a mother of teenagers and devoted wife to Richard, a farmer from Madison County, Iowa.
Their lives change after Robert, whose new assignment was to photograph bridges in Madison County, made a wrong turn that led him to Francesca’s doorstep one sweltering afternoon in the summer of the mid-‘60s.
The movie began with Carolyn and Michael Johnson, Francesca’s now grown-up children, reading with great perplexity their mother’s seemingly strange posthumous instructions of having her remains cremated and her ashes scattered below Roseman Bridge instead of being buried beside their late father Robert, whose remains lie in a memorial lot.
Wanting to understand their mother’s strange posthumous request, Carolyn and Michael discover a chest of journals and diaries Francesca compiled for the last 20 years. It is here where they learn about theirr mother’s illicit love affair with Robert.
Francesca was in her 40s, married and with two teenaged children. Her life revolved around cooking, cleaning and keeping house for her family. Her children were growing up and didn’t seem to need her anymore. Her husband Richard treated her like a house fixture and seemed to have relegated her to the background.
Her daily life followed a boring routine, but Francesca didn’t seem to realize this until destiny led Robert to her doorstep.
That fateful day, Francesca’s husband and children left town to join a weeklong farmer’s fair. When Robert turned up asking for directions, she offered to accompany him.
Their minds and spirits meet. The emptiness they felt vanished completely. They realized that they were destined to be together, as though one is the missing half of the other, like yin and yang.
They were together for only four days, but in that short period of time, they discovered they were bound by invisible threads that transcend time and space. But although they were so right for each other, the timing was wrong.
The lovers’ passion transcended the screen. Viewers could almost feel the heat of their bodies and smell their sweat, as though they were in the same room. One could almost feel like a voyeur, for the film captured and immortalized the essence of raw passion between a a couple spiritually and powerfully in love.
My empathy for Francesca’s inner struggles while she held the car’s door tightly and looked across the windshield as Robert stood beside his truck in the rain waiting for her to decide whether she would stay with her husband or run away with him on that last day of his stay in Madison County, almost made me wish she had opted to join him.
But their love and passion for each other might not have stood the test of time. Francesca would have made her feel guilty for leaving her husband and children. And this would have eroded her feelings for Robert.
I wish there was a different ending for them. If only Francesca intensified her efforts to find Robert after her husband died, their story might have had ended differently. As it is, they died separately, pining for one another, not knowing that in the last days of their lives, they could have had a chance to live a beautiful life together.
Dr. Harold J. Sala wrote in one of his articles that due to our fear of being alone, we give in to outside pressure and fail to wait for divine interference. Most of the time we live the rest of our lives regretting that we have chosen the wrong partner.
That’s where tragedy lies. We sometimes live the rest of our lives dreaming about what-ifs and what-might-have-beens, because we miss so many beautiful chances out of haste.
How my heart bled for the devastation Francesca felt when she received the box containing Robert’s bangle, the crucifix she gave him and the urn full of his ashes, along with the request of scattering his ashes below Roseman Bridge.
Francesca’s children must have felt the same way, while being thankful for the big sacrifice their mother did for them. Having witnessed that enduring love, they finally understand what they initially thought to be a senile old woman’s queer request. They obey without hesitation.
After seeing that movie, I learned to be more flexible. I used to be so rigid in my views. I viewed people who get into illicit affairs with so much contempt, refusing to understand. Now, I’ve become more sympathetic of their predicament.
Previously, even in choosing reading materials, (I was into romance novels at that time) I refused to read books where the hero or heroine had a divorce or was in a previous relationship. Robert and Francesca taught me that not everyone who knowingly or unknowingly enters a forbidden relationship could be truly tagged as wicked.
Robert and Francesca showed me that not all relationships are in white or all black. There are gray areas, too. Besides, the rainbow has many other beautiful colors.