Terence Davies's droll meditation on the blighted Liverpool of his youth marries archival footage, witty musical accompaniments, and a rhapsodic voiceover by the filmmaker in an homage to the personal and the past. Viewers familiar with Davies' earlier feature films, Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, will recognize his sharp intellect and sumptuous cinematic style, as well as his clever, thoughtful voice over. This cinematic essay recalls the work of Derek Jarman or Patrick Keiller while charting its own, deeply personal, course through the streets of Davies' youth. Yet this is not a sentimental film; some of its most keenly felt moments evoke furious anger and long harbored resentments. Davies' recollections of his early erotic yearnings for male wrestlers, and the ensuing clash of cultures with his strict Catholic upbringing, are only some of the fascinating revelations brought forth in this evocatively layered portrait of a city. Perhaps the most moving of his reminiscences are those about the cinema, itself. Davies began escaping Liverpool through the screen when he was seven. Of movies, he says he "swallowed them whole . . . gorging myself with a frequency that would shame a sinner." "Most of all, Davies proves himself to be a poet of the commonplace whose art is the exalting of the everyday. He may rail against 'the British genius for creating the dismal,' but his own work is anything but." (Kenneth Turan, LA Times) more at oftimeandthecity.com 35mm Please note: there will not be an introduction at the July 14th screening.
2008, color, 1 hour 12 minutes, UK