I know. I
know. This is NOT by any way shape or form what I would define as popular
family evening entertainment. It is some film studies students scurrying for
the hills, much less anyone who just wants a quiet evening and nothing more…
That said, here in the UK, the film was recently aired on the BBC. Well, it
makes sense really, it is a crystal clear and very emotionally invested picture
of what life in the ‘40s and ‘50s was like in the UK. It’s sheer nostalgia value
alone would bring in viewers, this I can clearly see (although I am not completely
up to date with the ratings for that evening. I don’t want to give a wrong
impression or anything). But I reckon this film has more of a universal appeal
that one may first think. Let me try and explain.
Distant
Voices Still Lives is actually the second (if I’m not much mistaken) film in an
autobiographical trilogy by the director Terence Davies. Now, I find it rather
hard to describe in the sense of a classic “storyline” – because it sort of has
a storyline, but it doesn’t. The film is told in what is almost definitely a
series of flashbacks. But the thing is, it isn’t necessarily a linear story. It
is more a sense of what it was like to be a member of that family. So I guess
what I’m trying to say is that it is less of a “film” and more of a moving,
talking photo album. We move from snapshot to snapshot and give a good, long,
hard look at each one. The snapshots, needless to say, are very well chosen,
beautifully composed and, beneath their appearance of chaos, highly organised.
We learn about the despotic father, the meek and mild mother, the three
siblings, their relationships with each other and with their various partners
later on… Family friends and neighbours come and go… Do you know what it is like? It's like sitting around with your siblings or
cousins and reminiscing about old days; jumping around from memory to memory,
backwards and forwards in time with only the loosest of threads connecting them…
That’s exactly what this film is like…
Now, from a
cinematic point of view, there are certain dangers to making a film like this.
It is, simply put, extremely personal. Some may argue a little too personal. It
may well end up meaning absolutely nothing to anyone who wasn’t a member of
that family. See, but I’m not so sure this is the case. Davies has, in fact,
achieved something that is quite hard to, both cinematically and in real life.
See, this
film is largely about family. It is about one family in particular of course,
but it gives us countless avenues in which we can consider our own family –
hence the universal nature of the story, but I digress. The odd thing about
family is that, you know, just to make things run a bit smoother in the outside
world, we tend to pretend thing s are a lot better than they actually are. I
mean, fair dues, some families are founded on total love and mutual respect
through and through and through. There are no skeletons in the closet or “game
face” that comes off when all the guests go home. But mostly… To some extent…
Call me a bit of a pessimist but I am a firm believer that a LOT of keeping up
appearances goes on. And you know the funny thing about that? When you try to
strip back the camouflage and explain what it’s really like, it’s actually
quite difficult to accurately explain. You have the stock words, stuff like
love, hate, anger, but it’s all mixed up in those complicated bonds that form a
family – for better or for worse. You try to give examples, try to boil it down
to one event or the other, but the thing is it never, never is just one event,
is it? It’s just multiple events over the years that bleed into each other and
make things just… I dunno, complicated…
Davies does
a fantastic job of telling his family story. You have to get past the fact that
it is very, very non-linear though and kinda go with the visual beauty of the
piece and the emotions that are so very, very clearly depicted. It’ll probably
get you thinking about your own family… Regardless of whether you grew up in
the UK in the ‘40s…
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