Distant Voices, Still Lives

Part nostalgia, part nightmare, the autobiographical DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES is writer-director Terence Davies's bittersweet look back at his working-class upbringing in postwar Liverpool. While it's beautifully photographed, Davies's portrait of a house divided by a near-psychotic father (Pete Postlethwaite)--loving one moment, brutal the next--is not a pretty sight. All of the familial warts and blemishes are visible as Davies avoids any romanticizing of the past whatsoever. In this highly stylized, cinematic portrait of his family, there is no enhancement, no glitz, not even much of a plot. Rather, Davies leaves us with a series of impressions, presented non...