Terence Davies' extraordinary memoir-cum-musical is hard to describe for the benefit of those who have yet to see one of its immaculately-composed frames.
It's partly a personal exorcism - the disturbingly charismatic father (Peter Postlethwaite), turning on a penny between tenderness and shockingly sudden cruelty, was clearly drawn directly from Davies' own experience. But so too was the pitch-perfect recreation of a long-vanished postwar Liverpool, constantly alive to the smallest details, embedded both in the onscreen decor and in the immensely rich, densely layered soundtrack, fully cognizant of the mysterious poetry of the shipping forecast emerging from thunder and torrential rain.
The cinematography has the feel of a faded photograph album, its original colours replaced by browns and beiges, the characters often arranged as though posing for a commemorative family record. Life revolves around home and pub, cinema and dancehall, wedding, christening and funeral, the unbridgeable gulfs between male-female relations a constantly recurring theme. There is at least as much sung as spoken content, a tapestry of popular working-class songs pressed into service at the merest excuse - and these moments are often the most emotionally revealing.
As the title implies, it's a film of two halves, shot two years apart. Distant Voices concentrates on the constant tension between father and family, Still Lives on vignettes following his death, with newlywed optimism turning rapidly to jaded deflation. But if that makes the film sound unremittingly gloomy, what always surprises on subsequent viewings is how funny much of it is: a flashback to a disastrous camping holiday even borders on slapstick, and the women's instinctive repartee keeps things upbeat even when apparently at their bleakest.
Terence Davies is the British cinema's greatest poet since Humphrey Jennings, and his inability to secure funding for the best part of a decade is a major national scandal. So, until now, was the unavailability of most of his output on DVD, though this is partially remedied by this lovingly-crafted BFI release. It's been assembled with Davies' own enthusiastic co-operation, and the commentary and interview are as delightfully candid as one could hope for.
Booklet features an essay by novelist Jonathan Coe.
Film Description
The second film in Terence Davies' autobiographical series (Trilogy, The Long Day Closes) is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies' own family.
The first part, Distant Voices, opens with grown siblings Eileen (Angela Walsh), Maisie (Lorraine Ashbourne) and Tony (Dean Williams), and their mother (Freda Dowie) arranged in mourning clothes before the photograph of their smiling father (Pete Postlethwaite). Soon after, the family poses in a similar tableau, but for a happier occasion - Eileen's wedding. While relatives sing at her reception, Eileen hysterically grieves for her dad, and recalls happy times of her youth. Tony and Maisie's memories, however, are more troubled.
Davies intermingles and contrasts scenes like the family peacefully lighting candles in church with the brutal man beating his wife and terrorizing his young children. In Still Lives, set (and filmed) two years later, the siblings are settled in life, but not all happily.
For Eileen, relief from her drab existence comes only when singing at the pub. With his skilfully composed frames and evocative use of music in place of dialogue, Davies creates a lovely, affecting photo album of a troubled family wrestling with the complexity of love.
