Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

Terence Davies' semi-autobiographical first full-length feature announced the arrival of a unique talent, one who would fuse the lyrical, poetic style of such maverick directors as Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway with the kitchen-sink melodrama endemic to the majority of postwar British cinema. Distant Voices, Still Lives unfolds with the ease of a memoir, yet there's nothing literal or obvious about it. Davies is much more interested in the signifiers of nostalgia and memory than the memories themselves: dramatic, often violent episodes are doled out in vignettes, interrupted or underscored by extensive use of pop songs of the era. But the music provides no solace from the grim goings-on of the intentionally anonymous family Davies chronicles; although the characters are all given brief respites from their unending, sepia-toned misery, the director undercuts any threat of treacly, romanticized revisionism. Instead, Davies subtly suggests the ways that family members prop each other up, cut each other down, and weather the storm of their upbringing, and,in doing so, his film acquires a cumulative sense of hope and understanding. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide