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Distant Voices, Still Lives

Country: UK | West Germany, Language: English, 85 mins

  • Director: Terence Davies
  • Writer: Terence Davies
  • Producer: Jennifer Howarth; Colin MacCabe

CGiii Comment

In a similar vein to A Long Day Closes...

Watch and be transported...

Davies does what he does and, truly, it is a beautiful thing to experience.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

The second film in Terence Davies's autobiographical series ('Trilogy', 'The Long Day Closes') is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies's own family. The first part, 'Distant Voices', opens with grown siblings Eileen (Angela Walsh), Maisie (Lorraine Ashbourne) and Tony (Dean Williams), and their mother (Freda Dowie) arranged in mourning clothes before the photograph of their smiling father (Pete Postlethwaite). Soon after, the family poses in a similar tableau, but for a happier occasion - Eileen's wedding. While relatives sing at her reception, Eileen hysterically grieves for her dad, and recalls happy times of her youth. Tony and Maisie's memories, however, are more troubled. Davies intermingles and contrasts scenes like the family peacefully lighting candles in church with the brutal man beating his wife and terrorizing his young children.

Cast & Characters

Lorraine Ashbourne as Maisie;
Jean Boht as Aunty Nell;
Carl Chase as Uncle Ted;
Chris Darwin as Red;
Sally Davies as Eileen as a child;
Frances Dell as Margie;
Freda Dowie as Mother;
Anne Dyson as Granny;
Susan Flanagan as Maisie as a child;
Marie Jelliman;
Debi Jones as Micky;
Matthew Long as Mr. Spaull;
Vincent Maguire as George;
Antonia Mallen as Rose;
Pete Postlethwaite as Father