Our hidden lives... our secret thoughts...

A war begins not with the first dropped bomb and the first gun volley... It has been kept in minds and souls, it has been cherished by the ideologists as a fruit in womb and waits for its term to appear in all its splendid and merciless horror... War is not over with last gun volley and signed pact by the defeated party of unconditional surrender... It is like cancerous sick whose term of existence was prolonged with the help of surgical removal of the main putrescent piece of flesh, but who is still sick because of the too high number of metastasis, which can not be destroyed... This is not to talk about... this is not to write about even less... People celebrate the victory not thinking or trying not to think that many things should be outlived... that they will never be like before...
War is like a prison whence they do not come back clean... those who survived it do not have freedom...

You leave killings behind you, to which you were doomed, ignominious deeds which will come to your sweetest dreams again and again... heroism which managed to win former inevitable fear of death...
Good luck that allowed to come through the grinding mill and survive... humiliation of thrown down yesterday's conquerors and mercilessness of today's avengers who bring liberation...
Only those who survived it can tell about it...
But people do not talk about shameful things aloud... do not show shameful things... you can tell about it only to yourself... to a human from whom you will never escape and hide all shabby and terrible truth... only you are your the most merciless prosecutor and the most gifted highly-paid attorney...
your own testimonial evidences against you are hidden in short notes... diaries, kept with reverence from strange look, in revelations which should be better burned down after reading...

In the movie "Our hidden lives" of the same name as novel of Simon Garfield, we are interested in diary notes of B. Charles... One of several after-war Britons whose short notes reflected subjective sentiments of people from quite different social levels on the things that happen in United Kingdom in the period from 1945 to 1948...

He started to write only in November on the victory year and stopped the notes in July of 1948...
Good screen version is a rare event... quite rare... Or meeting with the primary source prevents the watching, or disappointment of the time spent for nothing at the screen does not go away till the time you will read many times read thing and not promise to yourself to be true to the book once and for all...
Fortunately for us, it did not happen with "Our hidden lives"... After movie watching, we went to auction, when we wanted to search the novel from cover to cover, but despaired to find the book that had not ever been translated and published in Russia... found... received... and read it with pleasure without translation...
finding and recovering "consonant" peaces with the movie, compiling complete mosaic linen of after-war British days and nights hidden from us...

We understand that it would be more logically to start to talk from the story about POW, whose part was played by Michael...
But this conversation will doen't make a strong impression if it is not explained about the essence of B. Charles who changes for himself very unnoticeable, but actually very radically under the influence of meeting with young prisoner of war and attraction that appeared to him...

Charles is aesthetic person... snob is in complete sense of this word... who brings to head of the edge of his life comfort and high level of everything that surrounds him... people, place of abode, furniture and knick-knacks, performances in the theaters and movies in the cinemas...
everything should correspond to his idea about beautiful so much as possible, or they will be thrown to his thoughts and diary notes of brutal obstruction...

B. Charles suffers from contradictions...
He is against female emancipation, he comes as bright conservator and follower of traditions, and tries to rise over the conditions of the time, that judges homosexuals, having a soft spot to representatives of his sex...

Being a man rather apolitical, he is indignant at the disasters that were brought by the war to the visual environment only when he cannot find anything substantially necessary for support of deserving life level: pencils in the shops, favorite dish in poor menu of favorite restaurant or necessity of overpayment of a couple of pounds for little bowls which are used for table appointments for the tea...
High thoughts about high do not allow him to come down so much to feel the tastes and smells of things that happen around...
Fear of the exposure of his homosexuality makes him again and again to come back to this problem on the pages of the diary, watching it from different ways, time after time to prove to somebody strange the unfairness of judgment and pursuit...
He tries to struggle with himself, but...

Germans, using by united armies as free slave power on the hardest works, are interested by him primarily as a mean of help in home troubles for quite modest payment under the agreement with the Americans...
And in Charles’s house soldiers and subalterns of Wehrmacht appear to rub the furniture with wax, brush the collection of silver and put to rights the flue of a fireplace...
He talks to them, making short notes without names and images in the diary...

But once upon a time... sometimes it happens in life... simple "once upon a time" that changes everything... you see the face... hear the voice... and you want to run blindly... wherever... because you understand that you will never be like before... fear bites in you and disappears immediately, because it can do nothing anymore close to desire... War is war... the strongest survive...
"- Cigarettes... You have a cigarettes,please?.."
He comes to the grating with label that notifies eloquently "Keep Out"... but what is notification of authorities, when you want to come closer more than anything else...
Dialog is so light... the men juggle with random phrases that mean nothing from the first time and have very deep sense...
space before and after grating is scorching like fire of gifted cigarette... look how does it light... it is the beginning of something that will last for the years... from reality to the letters... coming back to Germany... In slogans to the movie's gallery the conversation is shown almost completely... We didn't managed to cut it... or we didn't want...
Even if you do not hear the voices, you can see the eyes... that is why the "step by step galleries" have so many faces of B.Charles... to the character, for whom, it seems, it is a not a place for on this site...
but Michael does not "fight" alone...
and people with whom he works before the camera and behind it, are interested by him not less than himself... our respect...

Suddenly, all unfairness and barbarism of war fall down on Brother Charles... pages filled with hasty thoughts about that "no nation deserves to be humiliated in the way we humiliate the Germans"... What vandalism... This young man... he is so... so noble... so refine and dainty... in boiler-room... on the kitchen... with bucket in hand and mob... dirt... stink... gratings... angel who is doomed by the miscreants to humiliating existence...
However, being a subject of repressions, seems, he does not agree with it... he watches... he estimated a man standing before him more than... or already... several minutes ago... estimated the opportunities and hailed, evaluated everything correctly...
Perfect mind and boundless arrogance... or pride... whatever... we can feel hostility to enemy on a war potentially, but his character can be excluded from equalization... those are familiar to it, who are loaded on the scale upper and those who are located in safer... stronger part overbalancing because of the happened circumstances...
It's impossible to humble this man... he reverses everything and transforms dirty works to his greatness... his acknowledgement of high justice if you and your army were not enough good to win, than one should bring a cross of overthrow from the pedestal with all virtue, that your unbeaten mind spirit can contain...

Charles brings a fire of match to the cigarette... how is it called... "lightening stroke" or "spark's glitter"... yes... he can miss it on the pages of his diary... he can hide this fact inside himself... he wants to have this perfection... to posses it completely... because he sees something that deserves his passion for the first time in his life...
Beholding... dissolution of B. Charles in somebody who is stronger... who meets all his hidden expectations and dreams... it is so sweet to get in him at fall down for ever... as much as possible... a POW continues to drop the phrases that mean nothing... mentioning the cat appealing to the attracted mouse to come a little closer...
What does he want... almost nothing... a little bit of rest... a little bit of cigarettes... to remember the taste of wine... to satisfy a hunger that tears the stomach absolutely despite the pride and the wish to follow the rules of honor... clean and good smelling bed with linen and starched bed sheets... several hours of sleep without memories... calmness and possibility to recognize you as a human once again...

Charles wanted to talk longer... only to talk... nothing more...
How, the visit is possible?
Yes, POWs can go and stay for the night if they have a special permission...
Agreement is entered...

The second dialog takes place in the house of B. Charles... It has a type of light fight... POW asks a question, but the Charles doesn't answer delighting the possibility to remind who is the proprietor of house and situation... however, he cannot save the positions for a long time that he tried to keep diligently... the guest behaves too calmly and surely... in contrast to confused Charles who feels sharp wishes and not less strong fear simultaneously, POW does not have any fear... unerring intuition of the hunter tells him that he can take everything he wants here... if he follows the role and rules the game correctly... he is blunt in measure knowing that the man who sits opposite to him and delighting how he drinks the wine from the glass neatly, he is already his ally... more over he is ready to take his opinion not thinking deeply about general sense of words... it is enough that a perfect creature tells them... fascination of character, hazily named as charisma... who and when thought about the danger of this event... those who possessed this gift leaded people to torments, killings of humanlike and death... for the sake of them, they stepped on the executioner’s block and allowed to raw the skin from alive men... somebody calls it devotion to an idea... possibly... but an idea brought by human... and worshiped not the thought, but to somebody who speaks it from the tribune... Lenin... Hitler... Stalin... the names who had a dry mouth...
POW is not inclined to worship to anybody... he explains sluggishly that Hitler was never popular in Hamburg (the city of his childhood and youth)... Hermann Goring seems to him more attractive... he is a pilot... a hero of War...
He is possessed not by human, but by the idea...
Relaxed and warmed, suddenly, a young man starts to look like a child, whose cheeks became pink and lips hardly controlled not to run in guiltless satisfied smile from satisfaction of the taste of chewed bread and butter forgotten long ago...
(what are you doing with an audience, Michael... we are also ready like Charles just to look at you... sorry, POW, of course... not hearing what truth he manages to speak biting a peace of what lies in on the plate, that he holds in his hand safely)...
" - If only Germany, England and even America could come together and join against the Russia... They are uncivilized... They never take off their boots when they go to bed..."
Beautiful profile of convinced Nazi... you deserve to be coined which will be in use after conquest of the world by you...
Piercer of the linen bed sheets that cover god’s body hardly... soft pillow that lies under the cheek comfortably... B. Charles with the look of Psyche who tries to pursue himself that this is not a dream and beautiful Amur is possessed by her-him completely... What did he talk about... it doesn't matter... he is so perfect... seems like something about concentration camps...
Oh, yes...
"It seems, all the stories we heard about concentraion camps were true, but the only people there were jews and political prisoners... Well, the political prisoners were fools and we both agreed what the jews should be exterminated..."

The face of Pat Christenson is reminded who doesn't want to believe that all suffers of human which are seen by his eyes now can really exist... That he could tell to B. Charles in answer to his hidden thoughts... probably nothing... just he would seize him by the scruff of the neck and bring to drag endless decaying dead bodies and sparking out of alive decaying people...
how he did with those fattened snobs from the town close to one of the camps who delighted beauty, thought about a "high" and "tasty" and didn't felt stink brought by the wind to their clean windows at night...