Worth waiting for

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2003)

Spoilers
I must apologize for the self-serving summary line. Although I wasn't exactly around when the movie was first released, I could have watched it years ago. Considering all the revivals, special screenings, TV showings and DVDs that have been available, it would appear that the only reason why I still hadn't seen it was that I deliberately avoided it. But I didn't. Yesterday, however, everything changed. I finally saw Casablanca, for the first time in my life. And I was absolutely delighted that it wasn't on a TV screen, but in the new, opulent Palace Cinema in the plush International Finance Centre (housing the 90-story skyscraper from the top of which Lara Croft did her gliding swoop through the Hong Kong city centre, landing in a boat in Victoria Harbour). No more digressions.
This cinematic experience of Casablanca was absolutely worth waiting for. Even to people who have never seen the movie, it had become so much of our daily life: from the immortal As Time Goes By to quotes such as `I think it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship', not to mention `play it again Sam'. Yet despite all the familiarity, Casablanca has all the freshness of a movie that you see for the first time, and this freshness is the kind that does not fade with the passage of time, when even the very title of the movie had long been made into a song with a separate life of its own.
One of the most important thing that drives Casablanca in a brisk, crisp pace (without relying on today's tedious explosions and car chases) is the excellent dialogue. While obviously not in the same class as Wilde's sparkling wit or Shaw's titillating, satirical humour, the dialogue in Casablanca is among the best you'll ever find in a movie. It tells stories, conveys emotions and at the same time grasps your attention. I wouldn't try to deny that the story is somewhat predictable and none of the elements, taken separately, is new. However, they are put together with such masterful control, perfectly balanced with sensitivity to details. In the scene when Bogart takes money out to the safe for the attendant to pay a winner at his casino, showing him in silhouette is a stroke of brilliance. Better still is the famous train station scene, where raindrops fall slowly onto Bergman's farewell note, washing the words away.
Bogart is his usual cool persona. The supporting cast is of the rarest quality, particularly Claude Rains. But for Casablanca to be where it is, it owes most to Ingrid Bergman. Captain Renault (Rains), in his first encounter with Ilsa Lund Laszlo (Bergman), has a line to the effect of something like `They say that you will be the most beautiful woman that ever comes to Casablanca. Now this is a gross understatement'. While this line may serve for Ilsa Lund Laszlo, it certainly does not do full justice to Ingrid Bergman, especially her smiles, with which she lights up the world with the moon and rules the earth with the sun (courtesy of W.S. Gilbert, in The Mikado).