Distant Voices, Still Lives

Terence Davies, UK, 1989, 85 minutes

Terence Davies drew heavily on his own childhood in this highly original, devastatingly emotional study of the lives of a working-class Liverpool family, centring around the death and funeral of the father and the marriage of his daughter. There is little plot, the film being composed instead of innumerable short scenes, fragments of daily life which blend together into a seamless collage of experience.

Illustrating the intense conflict and unhappiness the young Davies felt at the time, the film often contrasts scenes of starkly incompatible emotional content - as when the father tiptoes with incredible tenderness into his childrens' bedroom to hang up their stockings, only to break down in impotent rage at the Christmas dinner table. Throughout the film, the sentimental love-songs of the soundtrack counterpoint the strained, often violent family ties; but far from being depressing, the film is a celebration of the trascendent power of love and is amongst the most moving and involving pictures ever made.

Review by Richard Dewes
Taken from EUFS Programme 1992-93