The Long Day Closes
Written and directed by Terence Davies
Starring Leigh McCormack and Marjorie Yates
Reviewed by Wayne Ruscoe
"Between my father dying when I was seven and leaving primary school, those years were just so happy I was almost sick with happiness", says writer/director Terence Davies of the period of his life that is documented in his latest film.
As in the earlier, award-winning Distant Voices, Still Lives, Davies' own childhood reminiscences form the "plot" of this evocative and visually lush homage to England in the '50s. Freed from a brutish father, the young Davies discovers the magic of the cinema, puzzles over life's many mysteries and miseries, discovers his nascent sexuality and starts to step out into a world that was previously hidden from him.
The problem for this reviewer is that life in mid-'50s Liverpool is not something that I can easily relate to. Frankly, it looks grim and boring, and, sadly, lacking any redeeming charm.
Davies gives us a view that is not unlike the sickly sweetness of the musical Oliver; an unrealistic slice of a world best forgotten. Anglophiles will probably love this buried treasure from the time before TV, and, I suspect, the more precious critics will rave about its honesty and detail. But really, nothing happens of great consequence, nothing is learnt, nothing is received of value. It's rather like smelling camphor and being reminded of the odour of the closet your grannie used to look you in when you'd been a naughty child. A vivid memory for sure, but one that can be lived with out.
Still, it is a beautifully shot film, the work of a crew who have laboured to reproduce exactly the child's view of his environment. The soundtrack too, is rich with resonances of the post-war days of little England, the last days of the music hall and the wireless radio. Songs such as "Me and My Shadow", "Stardust" and the gorgeous Debbie Reynolds' version of "Tammy" float through the ether wistfully; Mahler's Symphony No. 10 mawkishly tugs at the audiences heart strings; and Davies' mother, compellingly played by former Shakespearean actor Marjorie Yates, lullabies us with "She moves through the fair".
The full effect of sound and light together is spellbinding. This is a masterful piece of film making. You will believe you are in Liverpool. You will believe it is 1956. You will believe it is raining. But you will want to be somewhere else.
Davies has said that this will be last of his autobiographical pieces, and after five shots at the genre it is definitely time for him to move on. Clearly, he is a director of considerable talent and his skill in bringing out the best in his actors can well be seen in The Long Day Closes, but he is, in this film, very much marking time. So you had a gloomy chilhood, Terence. Get over it, man. Get another life.