Of Time and the City

Published for www.film-forward.com




Written and Directed by Terence Davies
UK; 2009

"An excavation of Liverpool unearths more than just old memories."

According to Terence Davies, the influence of memory plays a central role in the human experience, but after an eight-year hiatus, his new feature may just prove him wrong. With narration written and performed by Davies himself, Of Time and the City pays painstaking attention to—and offers endless critique of—what are ostensibly the more-bitter-than-sweet details of his working-class Liverpool upbringing. But the jig is up. In his prior work, nostalgia’s formative effect on the human experience is essential. In the acid sarcasm that makes Of Time so memorable, however, nostalgia is more like a punch line. Mr. Davies does make every attempt to blame his characteristic (but ultimately harmless and, dare I say, appealingloveable) contemptuousness on his life’s trials, but a complaining voice persists throughout this autobiographical saga, subtly exposing him as the canny little snob he loves to be.

Not to deny that throughout this unique documentary, he is at times hilarious, or at others extremely intelligent perceptive. For so long, though, with such profound films as Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, he has taught us that specific experiences in specific places make up our defining elements. This time around, he seems to delight in his the assumed snobbish persona, belying his claimscontradicting his own claims to impoverished roots and social persecution. Financial struggle and closet homosexuality don’t produce the kind of elitist that Davies personifies. This craftsman is playing a part, and his witticisms are applied addenda to his history, rather than an organic product of it.

Of Time’s historical commentary is composed in part by an impressive collection of Bernard Fallon’s black- and- white expressionist photography from the 1960s and ’70s, as well as beautifully restored newsreel and home movie footage. The powerful images could probably stand as a piece on their own, but there is something more important that comes from the combination of narration and the host of brilliant musical selections (everything from Mahler to Peggy Lee to The Spinners’ Dirty Old Town) set to footage of demolished tenements, the British royal family in all its tacky splendor, and a small cache of contemporary locations shot by Davies and his crew. Davies’ narration is insightful, but it somehow doesn’t match the material.

What a character is this man, who’s been called “England’s greatest living director” (The Guardian). He’s admittedly seen hardly a new film in the last 10 years (for those of us who have, perhaps Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, a similar yet superior film to this one, can may be a point of reference). But Of Time is a great film, and of course how interesting it is also to share in the director’s identity crisis, imagining him identifying more with his namesakes Ray and Dave of the decidedly working-class Kinks than with fellow Liverpudlians John and Paul (Beatles, but apostles, too, I’m sure). Davies unabashedly hates Elvis, popular music, the Bourgeoisie, the British royalty, and the Catholic Church. I suppose when one diversifies one’s scorn, then poor people are the only ones left to champion.