Of Time and the City + Terence Davies in Conversation

Admirers of the inimitable Terence Davies raconteurial style will know to expect revelations, hilarious anecdotes, illuminating insights, poetic quotes and passion aplenty.

Of Time and the City

Widely acclaimed since its deservingly triumphant premiere in Cannes, Terence Davies' first 'documentary' is both specific in focus (it's partly about growing up as a gay, working-class, lapsed-Catholic Liverpudlian in the post-war years) and utterly universal in its fascination with the effects of time's passing.

Though commissioned to mark Liverpool's regnum as European City of Culture, it's wholly in keeping with the writer-director's earlier work. Visually, it consists mainly of archive footage, beautifully assembled - with a darkly brilliant sense of irony - to an audaciously diverse and original selection of music that ranges from Mahler to Peggy Lee, Handel to the Hollies; verbally, Davies' voiceover is a rich and erudite mix of autobiographical musings, jokes, epigrams and verse (by himself and by others). Wickedly funny and irreverent, fuelled by love, nostalgia, anger and a smidgen of hope, this magnificent, bitter-sweet meditation on change, ageing, happiness and death makes for superbly cinematic poetry of the very highest order.

Of Time and the City

Directed by:

Terence Davies

Country:

UK

Year:

2008

Running time:

72min

Certificate:

12A