FLAMES OF PASSION

GB
1989
17mins
Dir: Richard Kwietniowski
Starring: Richard Seymour and Donald Greig

A man begins a short romance with a fellow traveler over the course of six days

This is an ingenious gay homage to Brief Encounter, but it is not nearly as slick as David Lean’s elegant production. It is a contemporary melodrama shot in black and white and without dialogue, with two young men standing in for Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. The main station used for the story was Westbury, with dream sequences involving a steam train slotted in where appropriate. The latter scenes used Bulleid coaching stock on the Bluebell Railway, though only closeup shots of the coaches themselves and their interiors are seen. Most of the work at Westbury is confined to the station platforms and underpass though there is one good shot of the surrounding lines, plus another of the station entrance. A few HST sets and one Class 155 ‘Sprinter’ DMU are seen in close up, and that’s about it.

A moody shot of the passenger subway linking the platforms at Westbury
A view looking across to platform one at Westbury
And this is the busy scene on platform two
This is the main entrance to the station. Note the hopper wagons visible above the distant cars.
This final view is the best, and it gives us a good overall view of the southern end of the station with the freight yards beyond