84 Charing Cross Road

This film is based on the epistolary memoir of the same title by Helene Hanff relating her correspondence with Frank Doel, a British antique bookshop owner and his staff. The letters become less and less businesslike, and friendships start to form. Hanff and Doel become something like an invisible friend for each other until the latter's death. The first scene I post is a humorous one about an employee of the bookshop thanking Hanff the food parcels she was sending during the difficult period after the second World War. The movie is gentle and slow, and yet it has become relatively popular, perhaps unexpectedly so. I think it is because we all have someone who is kind to us, whom we hardly ever see, and yet whom we feel is part of our life. Someone we talk to, no matter the distance, as he or she will surely hear and understand... Which brings me to the second clip here, the last scene where Doel is still alive. By now their conversation is no longer merely written in letters, it has become something more... Interesting that they never meet, I wonder what would come out of that. What would be the experience like to meet the other full of excited expectations as opposed to forever anticipating it eagerly until it becomes impossible. And yet the main thing here is what they already have, this invisible thread of understanding that only two soulmates can establish between one another.