Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) – T. Davies

It has the quality of old photographs, fading and somewhat discoloured – and when they sing the old songs, memories are surely evoked.  This is obviously director Terence Davies’ goal in this reflection on his family’s life in working class Liverpool in the 1940’s and 1950’s. But we aren’t treated to rose-coloured nostalgia; instead, things are often tense and even brutal. His father (played by Pete Postlethwaite) is surly and violent, beating the kids and his wife, leading to questions after his death about why mum ever married him.  These early childhood experiences make up the first half of the film (“Distant Voices”), revealed discontinuously, evoking emotions more than revealing specific details of life – perhaps emotions are what chiefly remain decades later.  The second half of the film (shot two years later) sees the three children grown up and starting their own marriages, often meeting in the pub with a gang of close friends and their mum.  Other tensions arise, similar and different to those in the first half but now the spirit of community seems to enter as a protective factor (of sorts).  Singing in the pub is a spirited, perhaps escapist, activity but tender feelings well up even as the cast expertly portrays the often ambivalent relations they have with each other or with their friends, growing distant.  Are these still lives? Perhaps Davies sees them as not learning and building from their past experience. But still there is some life spirit here that isn’t being quelled, that comes through, yes nostalgically, but with enough power to think that Davies became the poet that he clearly is through these foundational experiences (both good and bad).