The long day closes

Clip from Terence Davies' The Long Day Closes posted on Youtube by Rongart)

I have been waiting for this clip to appear on Youtube for some time, and, presto, there it was today. The very clip.

I have had a real affinity for this film ever since I saw it (in the suitably art deco surroundings of The Capri Cinema), with my mother, on its first theatrical release in the early 1990s. I guess the 1990s were not all bad, then. Given that affinity, I am unable to be too objective about it. Although I did not exactly grow up in the Liverpool slums in the 40s and 50s, so much of this film reminded me of my childhood - the way that church life permeated everything and the concomitant guilt-fest, the escape from school life that family, music and cinema provided,the closeness with my mother, jealously watching the older siblings go out and being left to entertain myself, my burgeoning gay sensibility.

I remember reading a review at the time which, while positive, said that the film strayed into chocolate box sentimentality at times. But to me, what made this film even more moving is that it was deliberately dealing with a relatively happy period in Terence Davies' life when his brutal father (as depicted in Distance Voices, Still Lives (which I have never got around to seeing, but the clips I have seen on Youtube are plenty harrowing) was absent.

So, I hope you enjoy it. Who knew that Debbie Reynolds could be so moving?

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Gorgeous! Simply gorgeous. Will put it in our netflix queue right away.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is one of my all-time favorite movies ever. It has the same lyrical sadness. And there's an amazing sense of the small, life-saving moments of beauty even in the most difficult things. Very moving. I think you'll like it.

[a thousand shades of twilight]

Oh wow! For some reason, I actually haven't come across anyone else who has seen Distant Voices Still Lives before and it's great to hear your view. I love your descripton of the small moments of beauty. When The Long Day Closes came out, I remember reading a review that said "If you get bored by watching the changing of light on carpet, this may not be the film for you". I, of course, thought: Yay!The only other film I've seen of his was his recent "Of time and the city", which I enjoyed but which was inevitably a bit of a letdown after all of these years of waiting for another Terence Davies film (but that's a whole other post in itself...)
Watching these films makes you realise how few filmakers seem to be in a position to make such intensely unique and personal films these days. Anyway, I could go on...

[Pandora Charms]

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[Pandora UK]

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