24 Lies a Second: Reserved Occupation
Created | Updated Mar 17, 2019
Reserved Occupation
1. British-occupied Germany, late 1945. Possibly a Thursday.
A train arrives in the ruins of Hamburg. Slim and beautiful RACHAEL MORGAN (Keira Knightley) disembarks. Waiting for her is stocky, troubled British army officer LEWIS MORGAN (Jason Clarke).
RACHAEL: Hello darling! It is I, your slim and beautiful wife Rachael Morgan, come to join you in post-war Germany. I am outwardly very happy to see you again.
LEWIS: Hello darling! Yes, I am your stolid, decent husband Lewis, a well-meaning but perhaps somewhat naïve English soldier (although I am played by an American), determined not to be beastly to the defeated German people, and somewhat disgusted by the crude prejudices of some of my colleagues. I am outwardly very happy to see you too.
There is a long, meaningful silence.
RACHAEL: Of course, although we are both outwardly delighted to be back together, we cannot help but reveal the coldness at the heart of our marriage and betray the existence of an issue which is slowly driving us apart.
LEWIS: Mmm, yes. Although we will only let hints and clues as to what this might be trickle out at dramatically appropriate moments.
There is a long, meaningful silence.How was your trip?
RACHAEL: No sandwiches on the train.
She cannot meet his gaze.
LEWIS: Stiff upper lip, darling.
2. The grounds of a palatial house near Hamburg.
A car pulls up and LEWIS and RACHAEL get out. Waiting to meet them is tall, handsome German man STEFAN LUBERT (Alexander Skarsgard).
LEWIS: Herr Lubert! Please meet my wife Rachael.
STEFAN: Hello, Mrs Morgan. Please tell your husband to stop calling me a halibut.
RACHAEL: Hello, Herr Lubert. I am Rachael, the troubled Englishwoman with whom you immediately feel a deep, passionate connection despite yourself. And who might you be?
STEFAN: I am the sensitive, decent German widower (even though I am played by a Swedish actor) whose home has been commandeered by the British occupying forces for you and your husband to live in, while my daughter and I camp out in the attic.
LEWIS: Thus enabling a clumsy and not very subtle metaphor about the British occupation of Germany itself.
RACHAEL: Is this metaphor particularly resonant with the story we will enact?
LEWIS: Not really, no.
There is a long, meaningful silence.
STEFAN: Anyway, I am also the sensitive, decent German man with whom you immediately feel a deep, passionate connection despite yourself, thus allowing you to move beyond your initial prejudices about Germans.
LEWIS: I, of course, am completely oblivious to this. Shall we go inside?
RACHAEL: Yes, all right.
STEFAN: Please excuse me. I must go up to the attic, there is a subplot waiting for me about my difficult relationship with my teenage daughter, who has a crush on a Nazi loyalist.
3. The kitchen of the palatial house shared by the characters.
RACHAEL and STEFAN enter.
RACHAEL: Time has passed and we have both accepted the powerful sexual chemistry which exists between us.
STEFAN: Yes, I have accepted the powerful sexual chemistry between us, and also feel that by stealing the wife of an American –
RACHAEL: British.
STEFAN: – British colonel, I am striking a blow against the unjustness of the occupation of my country.
RACHAEL: Meanwhile, by yielding to the desire I feel for you, I feel I am punishing my husband for his neglect of me and his behaviour with regard to the dark secret which has killed our marriage. I have also come to value your sensitive decency and feel you are treated badly by the other Brits here, so this is a question of sympathy and not just me being over-sexed.
There is a long, meaningful silence.
STEFAN: Shall we tastefully consummate our illicit desire while your husband is out?
RACHAEL: Yes, why not? We’d better not go to the attic, there’s a subplot up there.
STEFAN: My kitchen table is of solid German construction.
RACHAEL: That should do.
The structural integrity of the kitchen table is put to the test, tastefully.
4. A military prison in Russian-occupied Germany.
LEWIS appears, ready to talk to an IMPRISONED NAZI.
LEWIS: You ought to know I have been sent here to hunt down Nazi hold-outs responsible for attacking the occupying American –
NAZI: British.
LEWIS: – British (thanks) forces, while my absence will conveniently also give my wife the opportunity to deepen her adulterous relationship with the man who lives in the attic. I, of course, am still oblivious to all of this.
NAZI: I am a Nazi, and therefore irredeemably evil. I am here to highlight the distinction between the majority of decent, sensitive Germans, and the tiny minority responsible for such suffering.
There is a long, meaningful silence.
LEWIS: You Nazis are so evil!
NAZI: Yes, we are!
LEWIS: I’m glad we were able to make that so clear.
5. A ball at regimental HQ.
LEWIS and RACHAEL appear in their glad rags.
LEWIS: I am a chastened man, for I am no longer oblivious to what is going on between you and that Swede.
RACHAEL: German.
LEWIS: Oh yes.
RACHAEL: However did you figure it out? Was it the kitchen table?
LEWIS: No. I may generally be characterised as being unaware of the interplay of emotions going on around me, and usually slow off the mark, but when the plot demands it I can be incredibly intuitive.
RACHAEL: Oh dear.
There is a long, meaningful silence.
LEWIS: We should probably have a heated argument in which our emotional reserve finally shatters and we get to the core of the dark secret which has been driving us apart since before the start of the film.
RACHAEL: That’s a good idea. Do you want to do that now?
LEWIS: Hang on a minute, there’s the culmination of that subplot about youthful Nazi resistance to the American –
RACHAEL: British.
LEWIS: – British (thanks) occupation and the tragedy of doomed youth due any moment, and we should probably wait for that.
The subplot passes them. LEWIS runs off after it waving his gun.
6. The palatial house.
RACHAEL, LEWIS and STEFAN stand around looking glum.
LEWIS: Well, we have managed to resolve our various problems in a tasteful and spoiler-free manner.
RACHAEL: Yes, everything has always been so blandly easy on the eye and unlikely to offend anyone, even my nude scene in the second act.
STEFAN: And yet it has all been so terribly inert and predictable and almost totally unengaging.
RACHAEL: I had no idea post-war occupied Germany was so dull.
STEFAN: Do we feel we have learned anything of value from all of this?
LEWIS: I am a good man and the war and its consequences have left me miserable.
STEFAN: I am a good man too, and the war and its consequences have also left me miserable.
RACHAEL: I’m not a man, but I’m also quite miserable because of the consequences of the war.
STEFAN: War is bad.
RACHAEL: War is bad.
LEWIS: War is bad. I’m glad we got that sorted out.
There is a long, meaningless silence.
The Aftermath (dir. James Kent) is in cinemas now, but hopefully not for much longer.
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