Of Time and the City

This evocative mood piece will resonate strongly with those who have seen Terence Davies' autobiographical film Distant Voices, Still Lives, a haunting portrait of a family in post-war Liverpool, which is widely regarded as one of the best British films of the past twenty years. This documentary tracing the history of Liverpool in the post WWII years is a deeply personal film for Davies, who explores the way in which the city has changed over 60 years. Drawing upon his own memories of his childhood and a wealth of archival footage, Davies explores the dichotomy of Liverpool – the character of the old city and the impersonal nature of the new – and the conflict between his Catholic upbringing and his homosexuality. Davies reveals how his love of movies and the wrestling helped save him. His rich, erudite and poetic narration adds a rich texture to the material, which explores how the working class city of Liverpool has lost much of its sense of identity over time. The film is filled with anecdotes drawing upon his childhood memories, all of which are beautifully illustrated by archival footage accompanied by popular songs from the era. This richly evokes a time and a place. Davies draws upon poetry, popular songs from yesteryear as source material for many of his quotes and literary readings. Davies also displays a wonderfully iconoclastic sense of humor, as he colorfully expresses his disdain for Liverpool's favorite sons The Beatles, and his contempt for the Royal family. The film is a melancholic memoir filled with a bitter tone of loss and regret. Of Time And The City is a much more accessible film than Guy Maddin's recent obscure My Winnipeg, which similarly attempted a nostalgic look at the city of his birth.

A portrait of a time, a city and a man; the time being the past, the city, Liverpool and the man, of course, Terence Davies, the acclaimed British film-maker who hasn't made a film in several years because no-one would give him the money and who, now, has been funded to make this, a documentary portrait of his home town, a memoir that ultimately says more about Davies than it does about Liverpool. This is very much a personal project for Davies who not only directed the film but who also wrote the script and narrates it as well. Judiciously, he has used mostly old newsreel footage with some contemporary material to look back at his relationship with Liverpool and the nation as a whole as if to say, this is what shaped him, this is what made him the man and the artist he is. The result, like most of what Davies has done in the past, is a masterpiece; a deeply moving and often very funny study of a vanished age, quite unlike other 'documentaries'. Davies makes no concessions to 'facts', except as he sees them. This, he is telling us, is my view of Liverpool; this, he tells us, is the Liverpool where I grew up and this, he tells us, is the Liverpool he abandoned.

Anyone familiar with Davies' earlier work, particularly "Distant Voices, Still Lives" and "The Long Day Closes", will recognize this as a Davies film from the opening moments, the only difference being that the images on screen are 'real' and not fabricated in a studio. But then, of course, they are only 'real' in so much as Davies chooses to make them real. Like the greatest of documentary film-makers Davies has 'fabricated' reality to suit his own ends. (He is very particular in what he gives us; he has little time for The Beatles or for the Catholic Church while childhood is very much to the fore). And, of course, because the film has more to do with Davies himself than it does with Liverpool, his relationship with the city comes across as somewhat ambivalent. 'We love the things we hate and we hate the things we love' he quotes quite early on and while he presents us with a much idealized vision of Liverpool for much of the time, he never shies away from showing us the poverty and the darker face of the city. One popular song he doesn't use on the soundtrack, (left out, I have no doubt, as being too 'cheesy'), is 'The Way We Were', not the Barbra Striesand version but Gladys Knight's, the one that begins with 'Try to Remember'; "Everybody's talking' about the good old days ... we look back and we think the winters were warmer, the grass was greener, the skies were bluer and smiles were bright").

On the other hand, if the 'autobiographical' trilogy and "Distant Voices, Still Lives" are anything to go by, we know that Davies' own childhood was far from rose-tinted. (The later, "The Long Day Closes", may be seen as being much more about Davies himself and was certainly 'softer' and more homoeroticized that "Distant Voices ..."). Where "Of Time and the City" scores over the 'fiction' films is in Davies' ability to move beyond the family circle to tackle wider issues, taking swipes at both the monarchy and the Catholic Church. I kept thinking, here is a man who will never get a knighthood nor will he ever get to heaven, although I doubt if any loving God would deny entry to so creative a subject as Davies despite his professed disbelief.

"Of Time and the City" is a thing of beauty as much as a painting, icon or piece of classical music and I can think of no director in the history of the cinema who can marry music to imagery as beautifully or as profoundly as Davies, (and when are the CD soundtracks to his films going to be released). "Of Time and the City" is a work of art worthy of its creator and in a year when Liverpool has been designated European Capital of Culture, I can think of no more fitting a tribute.

I saw this, a few days ago, at the Sydney Film Festival - it's very good indeed. What a pleasure to find a documentary director who believes in movement! No "talking heads" doco this. The whole picture positively seethes, and the beauty and ugliness of Liverpool are contrasted in a way that keeps the viewer in a state of constant expectation.

It's equally good to find a director who has strong views and is not worried about expressing them. The commentary on such things as the Pope and the British royal family are quite blunt but are saved from any suggestion of offensiveness by the humour that accompanies them.

The use of music is generally very fine; eg Handel's "Royal fireworks music" for a loving examination of St George's Hall and Peggy Lee's "Folks who live on the hill" for a view of the grim isolation of high-rise living. I must add, however, that the use of Mahler's 2nd symphony for the section on urban renewal is a bit obvious.

Older viewers will be taken by the fact that some of the best jokes are in Latin but young-uns need not be put-off by this. If ever there was a documentary on a specific topic (in this case Liverpool and Mersyside) that was also universal in the impression it makes, this is it.

There was a time when the world was black and while. I lived in that time, and so did Terence Davies. His time in the 50s and 60s was spent in Liverpool, and in this film, this poem with images, and songs, and poetry, and and words of remembrance, he takes us to that time that only those who lived it would fully appreciate.

We didn't really know we were poor. We made the best of it and found happiness where we could - at the beach, by winning a race at the fair, or in the movies.

The crack began in the mid to late 60s, and we started to question why some had and others didn't, why a church held such power over our lives, why love could not be shared by all, black and white, straight and gay.

I thank Terence Davies for this trip back. it was a beautiful thing.

Although I will proceed to contradict myself, this is one of those films that you will either hate or love. Over archive footage of Liverpool, Terrance Davies narrates his personal recollections and reflections of the city along with its history and changes from his birth onwards. It is a personal film for him no doubt because it is not so much of a "documentary" as it is a piece of poetry over images – it would not be out of place as an art installation somewhere (if it were structured and delivered differently). It is hard to review this because for some people the voice, the words and the images will combine to create a wonderfully personal experience that they are drawn into, more of an experience than just a film. However to other viewers (who will be unfairly told they "don't get it" or "aren't smart enough" and should "go back to Transformers 2") this will come over as pointless, annoying and right up itself.

And here is my contradiction, because I fell somewhere in the middle of this, wanting to love it but ultimately finding myself totally on the outside looking in. Throughout the whole film I was finding it sporadically interesting, whether in the footage or the narration there was stuff that stopped me getting bored. However I also had this niggling feeling that the film was being deliberately obtuse in what it was doing and that, in being so personal, Davies had forgotten that this was a film being sold to an audience, not just something he is making for free. By this I mean that there isn't anything that offers the viewer an olive branch to get into it – if you don't love it early then it will likely just leave you behind. At times the film does smack heavily of being pretentious for the sake of it and, while the negative voices and overly negative here, I can see the point of those that attack it as such.

Perhaps that is fine though, not every film will appeal to everyone and this is an art film that will always draw a small audience no matter where it is shown. I know many people loved it and believe me when I say that I did want to but somehow it just didn't work for me. I was left feeling remote from the subject of any scene and, although some aspects still interested me, at worst it did come over as a little pretentious. Worth a look for something different but it is certainly not for everyone.