THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTRY (Los puentes de Madison)

The Bridges of Madison County allows you to reflect on your own life, without becoming sentimental.  The film is not about love and not about sex, but about an idea. The film opens with the information that two people once met and fell in love, but decided not to spend the rest of their lives together. The implication is: If they had acted on their desire, they would not have deserved such a love.
A wonderful, if not quite perfect, film. 

The emotional peak of the movie is the renunciation, when Francesca does not open the door of her husband's truck and run to Robert. This moment, and not the moment when the characters first kiss, or make love, is the film's passionate climax.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

Francesca: And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before. 

 

---

Robert Kincaid: This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.

---

Francesa: I was just going to have some iced tea and split the atom, but that can wait.

---

Robert: If you want me to stop, tell me now.
Francesca: No one's asking you to.

---

Francesca: Robert, please. You don't understand, no-one does. When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you're expected move again only you don't remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself. You never in your life think that love like this can happen to you.
Robert Kincaid: But now that you have it...
Francesca: I want to keep it forever. I want to love you the way I do now the rest of my life. Don't you understand... we'll lose it if we leave. I can't make an entire life disappear to start a new one. All I can do is try to hold onto to both. Help me. Help me not lose loving you.

---

Robert: The old dreams were good dreams; they didn't work out, but glad I had them.

---

Robert Kincaid: I don't want to need you, 'cause I can't have you.

---

Robert Kincaid: Don't kid yourself, Francesca: you are anything but a simple woman.

---

Robert: When I think of why I make pictures, the reason that I can come up with just seems that I've been making my way here. It seems right now that all I've ever done in my life is making my way here to you.

---

Francesca: So, do you want more eggs or should we just fuck on the linoleum one last time?

---

Francesca: I realized love won't obey our expectations, it's mystery is pure and absolute.

---

Robert Kincaid: Things change. They always do, it's one of the things of nature. Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort.

---

Francesca: They came home. And with them, my life of details.

---

Francesca: I had thoughts about him I hardly knew what to do with, and he read every one. Whatever I wanted, he gave himself up to, and in that moment everything I knew to be true about myself was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.

---

Francesca: But love won't obey our expectations. Its mystery is pure and absolute. What Robert and I had, could not continue if we were together. What Richard and I shared would vanish if we were apart. But how I wanted to share this. How would our lives have changed if I had? Could anyone else have seen the beauty of it?