Sons & Lovers

Sons and Lovers -By D.H.Lawrence. I picked up the DVD for two reasons. One I saw the name DH Lawrence -I love that man's twisted thinking and the ability to translate the dark void that inhabits human relationships. The second reason is in a way connected to the latter sentiment. `Sons and Lovers' is a passionate drama about the fragility of human relationships, about love, sex and the space between them'. It did not disappoint. I did like what I saw....including the umpteen sex scenes, which certainly does not titillate (anyway I was never fond of the bam-wam types and you see a lot of that in this film) but becomes an integral part of the lives of the characters. And that's what sex is in real life too -though the moral brigade might argue otherwise.
Back to the story -Intellectual Gertrude marries miner Walter and soon grows to resent his hard drinking, inarticulate husband. When eldest son Willaim leaves for a job in London, Gertrude pours all her love and frustrated ambition into her relationship with her younger son Paul. And so when Paul finally falls in love, an unspoken battle begins between mother and son as Paul struggles to make his own way in the world.
The ambitious Gertrude is an ill-fit in the marriage to a miner. Is it any fault of hers to be ambitious? Not at all. Yet you also sympathise with the hard-drinking husband. You cannot grudge him his pint after a hard day's work in the damp mines, in the dark belly of the earth. He is a man who bears his cross in life. He is justified in his actions. So is the wife in her feelings of frustration, desperation and disappointment. She then accepts her fate and turns her attention to her sons. They become the greatest love of her life. She exacts her revenge on the husband by turning the sons against him. The film beautifully portrays the relationship between the wife and husband, the mother and her sons and the father and his unspoken love for his sons; the sons and their confused love for their father.
The battle for affection and ownership over the relationship between the mother and her sons begin when they grow up and fall in love. When the eldest son dies, the youngest son Paul begins to carry an extraordinary burden upon his shoulders. Now, he not only has to live his life to please his mother but he also has to stand in for his older brother who died young and so did his mother's dreams for him. Paul has a dual burdern to carry. In the bargain a struggle ensues between what he wants and what others want of him.
He is unable to fall in love. For he compares every woman he meets to his mother. His mother does not help his cause by trying to keep her son's affection an exclusive property of hers. But she feels Paul's pain when he suffers in his relationships.
I is the story of zillions of parents and children around the world. Parents whose lives revolve around their children. Their love for their children is unsurpassed. They sacrifice a lot for their children. But is it selfless? No, it is a twisted form of selfishness. They live their dreams through their children. They nurture and give their all so that their children could become what they could never be. In the bargain they fail to realise that their children are individuals in their own right. Human beings who have their own dreams, wants, desires and life to lead. Unfortunately, the aforementioned parents don't see it that way. They see their children as their own property and become, unconsciously, dictators ruling over the lives of their children.
In the end everybody lives a painful life. The children are confused and caught between the love of their parents and the desire to lead h/her own life. The parents are disappointed and feels betrayed when the child rightfully walks away to tread h/her own chosen path. In all this the love and bond they share remains. Unfortunately it becomes a noose around their necks.
Sons & Lovers does not fail to read the gaps in between human relationships.
Directed by: Stephen Whittaker