Distant Voices, Still Lives

Set in 1940s England, Distant Voices/Still Lives is a compassionate look at a radically dysfunctional family. The son and his mother must endure the casual and overt cruelties of the bull-necked father. The ongoing abuse takes its toll in the form of failed marriages and misguided attempts at ...more

Terence Davies' semi-autobiographical first full-length feature announced the arrival of a unique talent, one who would fuse the lyrical, poetic style of such maverick directors as Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway with the kitchen-sink melodrama endemic to the majority of postwar British cinema. Distant Voices, Still Lives unfolds with the ease of a memoir, yet there's nothing literal or obvious about it. Davies is much more interested in the signifiers of nostalgia and memory than the memories ...more