LONG DAY CLOSES, THE (director/writer: Terence Davies; cinematographer: Michael Coulter; editor: William Diver; cast: Leigh McCormack (Bud), Anthony Watson (Kevin), Nicholas Lamont (John), Ayse Owens (Helen ), Marjorie Yates (Bud's Mother), 1992-UK)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A love letter to the cinema, as some well-known Hollywood musical films are paid homage to, as well as Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, using the following quote from that film: "In those days they had time for everything." Directed by Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives) with a reverie for an 11-year-old's private thoughts, set in the working-class Liverpool period of 1955-56. The film is about his innocent autobiographical reflections, which are devoid of sentimentality and are emotially rich in seeing what influenced the child to be the kind of adult he became. What the film lacks in script and conventional production values, it makes up in poetical lyricism. What takes place on the screen is a series of close-ups of the child and allusions about the child's reactions to growing up, without any particular effort to tell a story. It makes for a different way of filmmaking, one that is plotless, that would have been marvelous if it weren't so boring at times. Yet, there are shots that are memorable, making me want to applaud Davies for the effort more than for the result.
Bud (Leigh McCormack) is the gentle child, seen reacting with his elder siblings and his warm mother (Yates), and with the other children in his junior school. At home, he seems to be a momma's boy, staying mostly alone and listening to the radio. When he goes out, it is mostly to the cinema, where he is in love with the movies he sees. Movies are his one true enjoyment and escape from the terrors of growing up, as they are more valuable to him than what he learns in school.
Bud is framed in most shots, where he is off alone by the window, watching his neighbors interact or watching his mother hang the clothes out to dry. The tableaux-like compositions are elegantly stated, whether it is a sunny day and the neighborhood is seen in a cheery mood, or during a driving rain, where the street he resides in looks forlorn, or inside his mother's flat on Christmas, with the window showing inclement weather outside but the house is warm inside with song and food. Bud is learning to live with school bullies, teachers who hit him on the back of his hand and demand obedience, the heavy symbolism inferred from his Catholic religious experiences which he tries to understand in his daily life, and his own nightmarish dreams. He seems to be innocent of sexual desires.
The film, like the reading of poetry, demands concentration on its visualizations and allows for the free translation of what is seen, as no explanations follow. The closing shot of The Long Day Closes, is of a striking sunset in black & white images, which was very evocative, the suggestion being of how grinding this childhood period was for the child trying to come to grips with things, but now looking back at it, he can see all the beauty in it that was always there, and not the least, being the way his mother always had such a chipper attitude.
There is a warm place in the film reserved for the standard contemporary pop music of the times, with such songs as "I don't know why I love you like I do" and, "At Sundown," which is sung by Doris Day; Judy Garland sings "Over the Bannister"; and, "Tammy" is sung by Debbie Reynolds."
The major problem with this experimental film is not the poetry or the wonderful images seen, but that it is not a fulfilling cinematic experience because we don't get to know any characters in the film with any depth and we are more or less left with snapshot impressions of what Bud experienced rather than feeling we know him better than that. For those who have fallen in love with art films, this one might be better suited to your taste than to the general public's.
REVIEWED ON 5/17/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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