Distant Voices, Still Lives

Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory.

Set in a world before Elvis, a Liverpool before the Beatles, Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory. In a powerful succession of searing vignettes, Davies paints an autobiographical picture of a family dominated by an oppressive patriarch.

The women in the family achieve partial escape from his dominance through the popular songs of the period that punctuate the narrative, provoking the idea of ‘a kind of musical’. Terence Davies’ poetic masterpiece has now acquired the status of a modern British classic. Ranked joint 243th in the 2022 Sight and Sound Great Films of All Time poll