Distant Voices, Still Lives

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Finn G Nov 21, 2018 "Distant Voices Still Lives" is an oniric and original biography. The film is composed by musical postcards from the past, and even if I found the substance a bit gaunt, the elegant technique bring this composition in the "must watch" list. See more

Albus W Sep 2, 2018 Having never seen this before until now, I was unprepared for this film's fragmented and dream-like presentation which defies linear chronology and your normal narrative structure. Once you get used to it, however, this avant-garde and thoughtful take proves rather fitting as the film tells the story of a working class family in post-war England by evoking seemingly random snippets of memory which coalesce into a coherent whole inside the attentive audience's minds. Births, marriages and deaths are all present and accounted for, and in between contrasting moments of paternal brutality and kindness, they go to the pub to drink and sing ... and sing... and sing some more. While this can be endearing to some and is perhaps a vital part of the film's writer-director, Terence Davies' life, but frankly, it does my head in, as his characters would say. Other than that and operating with a fairly unknown (at that time at least) cast that includes a central anchoring performance by Pete Postlewaite, the film is a daring and rewarding piece of cinema consisting of beautifully nostalgic imageries, and succeeds unequivocally as far as its inception and execution is concerned. I just wish that there is more meat to the conventional stories than the soap opera storylines we've got here, but perhaps their mundanity and ordinariness is the point Davies is making with this, his cinematic love letter to his upbringing. See more

Finn S May 18, 2017 Jesus H., will they ever shut up? I've never really been a fan of musicals, nevertheless, even when I dislike the songs, I can usually recognize and acknowledge, with ease, their production value and, sorry, there was none of it in 'Distant Voices, Still Lives'. In fact the film would have no redeeming value if it wasn't for its interesting cinematography. See more

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Distant Voices, Still Lives

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