Distant Voices, Still Lives **** (1988, Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh, Dean Williams, Lorraine Ashbourne, Jean Boht) – Classic Movie Review 5155

Terence Davies’s haunting 1988 autobiographical British film Distant Voices, Still Lives is a poignant study of postwar working-class life in Liverpool. It stars Pete Postlethwaite. Freda Dowie, Lorraine Ashbourne and Jean Boht.

Writer-director Terence Davies’s haunting, poignant, uncompromisingly unsentimental 1988 autobiographical British film Distant Voices, Still Lives is a study of late Forties, early Fifties working-class life in Liverpool, England. It stars Pete Postlethwaite. Freda Dowie, Lorraine Ashbourne, Angela Walsh, Dean Williams and Jean Boht.

It is meant to be a compliment to say that it plays like an upmarket film version of TV’s Coronation Street. In any case, it is a true work of art. Davies’s taken-from-life film explores the relationships and emotions of a family blighted by a father’s brutality, failed marriages and postwar life’s hardships.

The film is a remarkable achievement by Davies, who triumphs over meagre financial resources and the difficulties of filming at intervals over a couple of years, mainly thanks to the fine performances of a relatively unknown cast, particularly by the actresses, and the leavening of humour in an often tough-toned and depressing tale. Also to recommend it, there are very fine visuals, with cinematography by William Diver and Patrick Duval, and production designs by Miki van Zwanenberg, and a haunting Forties and Fifties soundtrack of the pop songs of the day.

It stars Freda Dowie as Mother/ Nell Davies, Pete Postlethwaite as Father/ Tommy Davies, Angela Walsh as Eileen Davies, Dean Williams as Tony Davies, Lorraine Ashbourne as Maisie Davies, and Jean Boht as Aunty Nell.

Also in the cast are Carl Chase, Chris Darwin as Red, Sally Davies, Frances Dell, Anne Dyson, Susan Flanagan, Debi Jones as Micky, Matthew Long, Vincent Maguire as George, Antonia [Toni] Mallen as Rose, Andrew Schofield as Les, Michael Starke as Dave, Pauline Quirke as Doreen, Nathan Walsh, and Marie Jelliman.

Though only 85 minutes long, Distant Voices, Still Lives comprises two separate short films, shot two years apart with the same cast and crew. Distant Voices tells the story of a working-class English Catholic family living under Father’s domineering patriarchal regime, while Still Lives sees the children grown up and emerging into a brighter Fifties Britain.

It won the London Film Critics’ Circle Film of the Year award and the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association best foreign film award (tied).

It was re-released in the UK by the British Film Institute in 2007.

It is Davies’s first feature, following The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983), comprising the short films Children, Madonna and Child, and Death and Transfiguration, and followed by The Long Day Closes (1992).

The central location of 47 Whistler Street, London N5 1NJ, was chosen for its architectural similarity to Davies’s childhood home in Kensington Street, Liverpool. Davies recalls: ‘The house where I grew up was demolished in 1961. And it was unique. I was able to rebuild it for The Long Day Closes. But we didn’t have a huge budget for Distant Voices, Still Lives, so we had to find something that looked a working-class street, and we shot in Drayton Park. But there were no cellars, so it wasn’t like our house. We had to go with what was there, because we didn’t have the money. So that was a practical thing.’

The budget was £703,000 and it took $693,563 at the cinema box office, so with video and later DVD sales it probably paid for itself, though of course it is an artistic rather than a commercial enterprise.

Distant Voices, Still Lives was Pete Postlethwaite’s first major success after minor TV and film appearances running back to 1975. Pete Postlethwaite OBE (7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011).

Jean Boht (born Jean Dance) 6 March 1932 – 12 September 2023).

Jean Boht (born 6 March 1932) died on 12 September 2023, aged 91. She married the conductor and composer Carl Davis in 1970 and they had two daughters. Davis died on 3 August 2023. She was born as Jean Dance, Her first marriage to William Boht ended in divorce.

Terence Davies died at his home on 7 October 2023, at 77, after a short illness. Because Davies found funding hard to raise and refused to compromise, his output was remarkable but sporadic, with only one anthology film The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983) and eight feature films to his credit: Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and The House of Mirth (2000), The Deep Blue Sea (2011) and Sunset Song (2015), A Quiet Passion in 2016 and Benediction in 2021.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,155

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Terence Davies (born 10 November 1945).