Terence
Davies appeared quietly out of nowhere on the cinematic landscape with his 1988
autobiographical period tale of the working-class life in Liverpool, England
between the 1940s and 1950s with Distant
Voices, Still Lives. As silently as
the British writer-director rose to the podium with his abstract, nonlinear
recollection on his upbringing under the domineering prowess of his brutally violent,
boorish and often psychotic father, so swiftly was the newcomer auteur and his
film championed as among British cinema’s most invaluable national
treasures.
Winning
the Grand Prix at the Belgian Film Critics Association and voted the third
greatest British film of all time, this episodic, fragmented and often lyrical
ensemble piece chronicling the lives of a mother, son and two daughters harsh
upbringing to a brighter but still difficult adulthood has often been called
Britain’s forgotten cinematic masterpiece.
Thanks to a recent 4K theatrical restoration and home video release
provided by the British Film Institute and Arrow Video, Distant Voices, Still Lives can now be seen by a new generation of
viewership, a film which has lost none of its harshness, hopefulness and a
genuine passion for the movies that is as palpable as anything in Wong Kar-Wai’s
illustrious career.
Unfolding
as a series of recollections broken up into two halves which were shot two
years apart using the same cast and crew, the film follows near silent muse
Freda Dowie as the family’s nameless mother and her three children Maisie
(Lorraine Ashbourne), Eileen (Angela Walsh) and Tony (Dean Williams) as they
tread lightly under the shadow of domestically violent and arguably manic
depressive father Tommy Davies (Pete Postlethwaite in the role of his
career). Jumping freely from past to
present scene by scene with an even greater structural abstraction than Robert
Altman’s Short Cuts, the film
achieves the rare feat of stopping time where we’re mired in the worlds of
these characters as we drift from episode to episode involving the very real
damage the father inflicts upon his family.
Playing
like two disparate pictures loosely linked by the family lineage, Davies’ labor
of love chronicles the difficult chapters of his own life while functioning as
a snapshot of 1940s and 1950s English life amid pubs, wedding parties,
cigarettes, moviegoing and above all, the binding power of song. Through much of the picture, the characters
sing American songs together as the camera pans freely about the room observing
the characters. Much like Alan Parker’s
cinematic adaptation of Angela’s Ashes though
far more restrained comparatively in terms of imparting to the viewer how to
take the bleak portrait of the characters’ fates, Distant Voices, Still Lives achieves its lasting power by offering
viewers a glimpse into the director’s childhood without providing any final
answers about it. In other words, here
are all of the highs and lows (mostly lows) encountered by Davies’ family
growing up and you the viewer are left to make your own judgments.
Upon
cinematic release, one critic joked Davies’ heavy tragicomic personal memoir ‘made
Ingmar Bergman look like Jerry Lewis’.
While it is true Distant Voices,
Still Lives will indeed tug hard at the heartstrings and tear ducts, there’s
also a wealth of hope for the future running throughout with the ongoing
sing-song shared by the characters representing the characters’ joint efforts
in getting everyone through their mutual personal obstacles. Moreover, it is a nonjudgmental look into a
section of British life often overlooked by the movies unfolding in a form that
plays like a compendium of very real memories that remain as fresh, as
troubling and as deeply personal as they were to the man who gave them
cinematic form.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki