This uniquely nostalgic picture transports the viewer back to mid-twentieth century Liverpool through vignettes depicting various moments in a working-class family's life in which the hardships of family and social conventions are observed and dealt with under differing perspectives of one family-member to another. Divided in two, the first part (Distant Voices) is essentially a series of flashbacks of the family's early years illustrating the strained relationship between the patriarch (Pete Postlethwaite) and the rest of the clan, Postlethwaite's performance powerful in its brutality. The second half (Still Lives) starts where the source of the flashbacks originate, after daughter Eileen's (Angela Walsh) wedding. From there on we follow a more linear timeline depicting oppressive scenes of married British life, the structure still episodic in development. Unanchored by any specific narrative drive, Voices is more like a series of nostalgic portraits intent on conveying the mores of their times. An important component of these, and the film itself, is the incredible muscis one hears in those 80 minutes. Bringing people together, music is used as a mask for misery, conjured in moments of fear and destruction in an attempt to move passed them. Joyous moments are never without a melody whereas the hard times are often silent, rendering the music even more integral to the film's enjoyment, without which Voices would have been far more depressing than it actually is.
I think the music is central to the film too.
ReplyDeleteThe next one to watch is The Long Day Closes. They're terrific films in themselves, but the two of them (along with his Liverpool documentary Of Time and the City) provide context and deeper meanings for each other.