A friend of mine saw Carol and did not respond strongly to the film. In particular, she did not resonate with Therese. I thought I would write up what I talked through with her and write a post about how social spaces affect the way everything feels and plays out in this film. In general, those social spaces in which the love between Carol and Therese emerges during the film would typically snuff out a love relationship like this one or, at the very least, alter and restrict the form it wanted to take into something else, something less threatening to the status quo. That active suppression creates a mysterious quiet for some viewers and an incredibly loaded tension for others.
Therese reads the same way. The “ambiguity” of Therese’s desire doesn’t seem ambiguous if you either understand the dynamic of finding your deepest longings at odds with the social spaces around you from life experience or can readily interpret the language of film and watch closely. Her desire is held in the body and struggles to emerge into the surrounding social space; if you simply take care to notice how she is breathing or holding her body, you will see it. It’s also held in her attempts to maintain privacy surrounding her actions; that she sends Carol her gloves alone at night, hides for whom she is buying the record. And it’s held in those nuanced communication that take place between people who share an affinity for one another and cultivate intimacy; those details of touch, word, and gesture comprise some of the most beautiful moments in the film like Carol touching Therese’s shoulders at the piano and Therese smelling Carol’s perfume. Her desire is also built into the film narrative; the way that snow begins to fall the moment Therese agrees to go on the trip with Carol, the way the scene of Carol doing Therese’s make-up feels so evocative of a love scene.
Cars and hotels provide the two most sheltered spaces for the love to develop on its own terms during this film. Their own homes, restaurants, and even phone calls we see constantly interrupted, and their relationship obscured and reshaped to conform to expectations, largely the expectations of men (with Harge’s mother serving as a nice inclusion of a woman actively engaged in acts of oppression, a little reframing to show that this film is not about the inherent goodness/badness of women/men and, in fact, knows what it’s about, often a whole lot better than its reviewers do). Even Carol’s invitation to go traveling takes place on a rooftop in the cold of winter, a social space they occupy outside of what’s usual.
The dramatic crisis of the plot is when we find those sheltered spaces intruded upon. Another traveler proves to be a surveillance man sent after them. That’s perhaps the worst moment in the film, when after a rather tender and profound love scene fades into a whirl of blurred images still with rather clear and distinct sound, we find out that someone has eavesdropped upon their love affair. Their lack of power afterwards feels crushing, as the imposition of mainstream society gets the weight of legal authority behind it. The legal system becomes the sight of conflict, a structural imposition of normalcy upon the two of them. Even the attempted phone call, we fear, may not be private. Even Carol’s home, we fear, may not be a space where she can talk freely with Abby.
Two scenes define the excellence of this film for me. The first is the rather tragic and beautiful love scene that takes place after they discover they’ve been recorded. They know they are not being pursued anymore, because they’re had. Even in that small opening of space, under the intense strain and mutual distress they’re experiencing, their love seems to take shape again like a delicate and infinitely powerful life force waiting for any opportunity to be born. We get the most elegant shot of them lying together afterwards. It’s one of those images that conveys a profound and intricate meaning that would sound trite if put into words, one of those moments when film as a medium shows what it can do best by evoking so much so poignantly in a brief and living image.
The second is at the very end when we see Therese leave a social space in which she seems to have a relative sense of belonging and comfort. And then for the first time, we see her actually intrude upon a social space to get to Carol as she brushes past the ruffled manager at the front and makes her way past all the tables. The subtlety of their shared look in that moment feels like a massive victory – what they had was not destroyed and even more space has opened up to them now. The idea of Carol’s apartment stuck with a lot of viewers who loved the film as the promise of a place where they could be together, uninterrupted and no longer intruded upon. Because we have faith that this is all their love needs to open out and flourish and evolve into a mature version of what we’ve already seen proven powerful, resilient, meaningful, and beautiful.
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