SummaryThe second film in Terence Davies's autobiographical series ('Trilogy', 'The Long Day Closes') is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies's own family. The first part, 'Distant Voices', opens with grown siblings Eileen (Angela Walsh), Maisie (Lorraine Ashbourne) and Tony (Dean Williams), and... Read More
Directed By:Terence Davies
Written By:Terence Davies
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
86
User score
Generally Favorable
7.4
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
86
90% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
10% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
This combination of intimacy and remove — the startling emotional jolt of seeing a family in mourning stare toward you in silence, an image of the felled patriarch hanging on the wall behind them — characterizes Davies’s enthralling thirty-year-old debut feature, an autobiographically informed but hardly event-reliant memory piece.
100
Terence Davies' mesmerizing memory film, Distant Voices, Still Lives, becomes its own kind of poetry: taut, referential, inward, brilliant. Although it is set among the unremarkable flats of Liverpool, the place is stamped by Davies' profoundly original vision and sounds; its framing is painterly and deliberate. And just as you think you have its moves all doped out, a scene of such shocking beauty flashes before you that it takes your breath away.
90
Davies recalls all these sights and sounds -- so horrifying, so beautiful -- and, with his unflinching style, turns anecdote into artistry. The distant voices still live.
88
When a forty-four-year-old man makes a movie about his family and friends sitting around singing old tunes, you certainly don't expect an unforgettable amalgam of humor and heartbreak. But that is precisely what Terence Davies delivers.
80
The film is full of singing, as the characters break into familiar songs at family gatherings or in the local pub. This isn’t a film based on nostalgia, though; its very special qualities stem from the beautiful simplicity of direction, writing and playing, and the accuracy of the incidents depicted.
70
Ultimately, Davies' choices have a powerful cumulative effect. In the latter section, he achieves a transporting poignancy of feeling. What he manages to convey are the debilitating contradictions that exist, side by side, within every family; the ways in which families nurture as they destroy, and love and despair act as equal partners.
50
One of those dimly realized personal statements that ultimately says a lot less than the written program notes that accompany it.
User score
Generally Favorable
7.4
67% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
33% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Nov 24, 2021
7
This is a somewhat nostalgic film about a family living in England, living through WWII and how they use music to lift their spirits. There is a sort of communal uplifting sense to it (it's not uplifting in itself but it shows people coming together to sing, which brings them together metaphorically), although it doesn't shy away from depicting grittier moments when they were made to rush for the air raid shelter as shrapnel falls all over. The characters are fairly likeable, with the exception of the unnamed patriarch, played by Pete Postlethwaite. While the film certainly features a fair bit of singing, to lift the moods of those depicted, among other things, it's true that there are scenes not featuring any singing as well. There is a definite sentimentality present but I liked that it's not what I'd regard artificially/unnecessarily cheesy. It very much toes the 'stiff upper lip' line. I thought it was quite telling how much was said between characters during scenes set in a local pub after a family occasion has taken place. It is perhaps a bit old fashioned - well, it's a period drama after all. It's not what I'd think of as especially memorable or great but it's certainly a good watch never the less, a real 'British film' as it were, so I'd recommend it on that basis.
Production Company:
- British Film Institute (BFI)
- Channel Four Films
- Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)
Release Date:Sep 11, 1988
Duration:1 h 25 m
Rating:PG-13
Tagline:In memory, everything happens to music.
Awards
European Film Awards
• 5 Nominations
London Critics Circle Film Awards
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
Valladolid International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
