Distant Voices, Still Lives

Memories of growing up in Liverpool in the 1940s and 1950s: a hypnotic pull of painful and joyful moments in the life of a working-class extended family, held together by the power of music. With its unusual narrative flow and remarkable emotional impact, the autobiographically inspired feature debut of Terence Davies was met with immediate acclaim and is now considered a landmark of British cinema.

In two episodes, filmed a year apart, the difficult wartime years (Distant Voices) and the transition into the postwar era (Still Lives) are portrayed following the death of the violent patriarch (a breakthrough role for Pete Postlethwaite).

Unforgettable is the poetic precision with which Davies brings his youth to life—at times fleeting like ghostly apparitions, at others heartbreakingly direct in its uncompromising truth. (Christoph Huber)