OF TIME AND THE CITY – DVD

OF TIME AND THE CITY – DVD
A Terence Davies film

 

Acclaimed British filmmaker Terence Davies revisits the city of his youth in this elegiac documentary. A deeply personal evocation of post-WWII Liverpool, the film is a patchwork visual poem woven from archival footage, a mash-up of classical and pop music standards, and Davies’ own incantations — delivered in his lugubrious, at times overwrought, elocution. Revealing a caustic wit and a biting contempt for institutions such as the Catholic Church and British royalty, the director underscores his hatred of such symbols by depicting images of the environs of Liverpool’s working class, an environment that Davies sneers at as demonstrating ‘the British genius for the dismal’. Davies speaks candidly of his own childhood experiences, from the spectre of Catholic guilt and the ‘dark desires’ of homosexuality awakened at professional wrestling matches, to the rapture of seeing Hollywood films and musicals—pain and pleasure the filmmaker has sought to come to terms with his whole adult life.
74 mins, BBFC Cert 12, DVD