Of Time and the City (2008) User Reviews

...the years wasted in useless prayer.

[lastliberal · 8/10 · 13 May 2009]

There was a time when the world was black and while. I lived in that time, and so did Terence Davies. His time in the 50s and 60s was spent in Liverpool, and in this film, this poem with images, and songs, and poetry, and and words of remembrance, he takes us to that time that only those who lived it would fully appreciate.

We didn't really know we were poor. We made the best of it and found happiness where we could - at the beach, by winning a race at the fair, or in the movies.

The crack began in the mid to late 60s, and we started to question why some had and others didn't, why a church held such power over our lives, why love could not be shared by all, black and white, straight and gay.

I thank Terence Davies for this trip back. it was a beautiful thing.

Beautiful slice of cinema

[blackburnj-1 · 7/10 · 13 December 2008]

Terence Davies's documentary "Of Time and the City" should be considered as more of a cinematic poem. This can be a very irritating thing, and Davies does not make it all the way through the film without falling into self-indulgence. However, he does construct a quite beautiful piece of cinema.

This is flawless in areas. Davies's selection of music and images is impeccable, and his voice is a delight to listen to. As a result, a number of sequences are joyous to experience. The slice of the Korean War combined with "He ain't heavy, he's my brother" by The Hollies is my particular favourite. Davies is also, at times, devilishly funny. His description of the coronation of Elizabeth II as the beginning of the "Betty Windsor Show" raised a good laugh from the audience in my screening, and there are many other lines like it.

Davies is at times profound. His own personal writing about his awakening sexuality and the Roman Catholic Church is very interesting and honest. However, as he repeats the formula of poetic monologue leading on to music sequence time after time, he becomes less interesting and more self-indulgent.

Although this is a short film (clocking in at about an hour and a quarter), boredom could prove to be a problem. Nevertheless, this is an impressive and beautiful film. It isn't perfect, nor is it a masterpiece, but it is head and shoulders above many other films and an enjoyable experience.

Mesmerising Visual Poem by a Master Filmmaker

[BJJManchester · 8/10 · 12 November 2008]

Made to coincide with Liverpool's year of culture,OF TIME AND THE CITY is an impeccably made,edited and narrated personal dissertation by Terence Davies on his native city.

It isn't really a documentary,despite the excess of grainy but fascinating historical film footage of Liverpool of bygone days,which takes up over 90% of the running time.In such circumstances,the choice of music and words to accompany this vintage imagery is profusely vital to keep interest alive,but Davies is more than equal to the task.His gloriously rich,tremulous voice,quoting his own and other poetic expressions, is perfectly supported by immaculately chosen classical music,with a sparse few pop songs somewhat reluctantly included.Davies' lament for simpler,better days compared to contemporary times could have easily fallen into the trap of sentiment,but is actually often very moving because of the stunning juxtaposition of the spoken word,imagery and music.

But all memories involved are not necessarily happy ones;his musings on his difficulties with his religion (catholicism),his sexuality,the 1953 coronation,and the gradual decline of working-class communities from the 1960's onwards shows a bitterness,pessimism and self-loathing,but which at least is expressed with a very deep intelligence and an insightful,trenchant wit.His distaste for the Merseybeat era,with footage (and mute footage at that) from The Beatles only sketchily incorporated (there is but a brief musical clip of The Swinging Blue Jeans included) seems as profound as his adoration for most classical composers,exuberantly celebrated on the soundtrack.

However,his choice of one non-classical track,'He Ain't Heavy,He's My Brother' (by The Hollies),in relation to footage of the Korean war (and his elder brother's service there) is a trifle misjudged,as is occasionally the superfluous examples of poetry quoted from various authors.It is often the case that Davies' own ruminations are far more edifying,and the immaculately filmed footage from the Liverpool of today is perhaps just a bit too fleeting,but still manage to show his considerable skill as a director.

Nevertheless,OF TIME AND THE CITY is a hugely impressive artistic essay by a scandalously neglected filmmaker (the UK usually handles great talents in this flippant manner),and is worthy of comparison to other poetic British documentarists of the past like Humphrey Jennings and John Grierson.

RATING:8 out of 10.

Liverpool Made Me

[kevin-rennie · 7/10 · 3 April 2009]

The 21st Century has seen an amazing rebirth of feature length documentaries as a rich cinema experience. Obvious examples from 2008 are Man On Wire and Waltz with Bashir.

Of Time and the City is the latest and certainly the most eccentric. It has no obvious claim to a mass market, not even from its home turf Liverpool. It is quite esoteric at times, laced with poetry and introspection which may make it less accessible for some who would otherwise enjoy it immensely. Yet at the same time it is a vivid history of post-war Liverpool, and its working people. A collage of the changing character of British cities in the second half of the 20th Century.

This is filmmaker Terence Davies' homage to his roots. The official website describes it as "both a love song and a eulogy. It is also a response to memory, reflection and the experience of losing a sense of place as the skyline changes and time takes it toll." Davies was born in November 1945, after the end of the Second World War and at the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

Terence comments that "family, church and the movies" were his "whole world". He grew up in Liverpool's slums. The changing and unchanging architecture of this port city is central to his memories. The enduring buildings are mostly Classical, with more columns than a U.S. State Capital.

We see the promise and the betrayal of the slum clearances with the communities of small terraced houses replaced by the ghettos of public housing towers. The "loss of dreams" is underscored by Peggy Lee's The Folks Who Live On the Hill. "We had hoped for paradise. We got the Annus Mundi," puns Davies.

His republican sentiments are clear. We are treated to some of the highlights of the royal circus known as the Betty Windsor Show, in particular her wedding and coronation.

He also parades the other masters of pageant and ritual, the Roman Catholic Church and its red-robed clergy. However, the papal pomp is not enough to keep Terence within the faith. The hideous new Cathedral cannot cement his attachment to his ancestral religion. Instead he visits a different arena, the wrestling ring, to indulge his adolescent homosexual fantasies.

Of Time and the City is a visual gem, using mostly archival footage. It's his first documentary and Davies says that he cut it like fiction - "the images should speak". The narration mixes poetry with his own commentary as he explores "time, memory and mortality". T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is a major source of inspiration:

Out at sea the dawn wind Wrinkles and slides. I am here Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning. (East Coker)

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; ... A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well (Little Gidding)

Musically Davies has little time for the pride of Merseyside, The Beatles. His soul has been stirred more by the likes of Mahler. The film's sound track is an aural delight.

If you're looking for a travelogue, then forget this film. Terence Davies challenges his audience, through his personal reflections, to ponder their own journeys.

'Cinema Takes' http://cinematakes.blogspot.com/

Splendid

[mouton1890 · 9/10 · 8 June 2008]

I saw this, a few days ago, at the Sydney Film Festival - it's very good indeed. What a pleasure to find a documentary director who believes in movement! No "talking heads" doco this. The whole picture positively seethes, and the beauty and ugliness of Liverpool are contrasted in a way that keeps the viewer in a state of constant expectation.

It's equally good to find a director who has strong views and is not worried about expressing them. The commentary on such things as the Pope and the British royal family are quite blunt but are saved from any suggestion of offensiveness by the humour that accompanies them.

The use of music is generally very fine; eg Handel's "Royal fireworks music" for a loving examination of St George's Hall and Peggy Lee's "Folks who live on the hill" for a view of the grim isolation of high-rise living. I must add, however, that the use of Mahler's 2nd symphony for the section on urban renewal is a bit obvious.

Older viewers will be taken by the fact that some of the best jokes are in Latin but young-uns need not be put-off by this. If ever there was a documentary on a specific topic (in this case Liverpool and Mersyside) that was also universal in the impression it makes, this is it.

Simple nostalgia, tricly elegy

[chaos-rampant · 1 June 2011]

We kind of expect our artists to be haunted by demons, it is in tacit understanding that in their art we'll find the template to overcome ours. That, in visiting the dark place which is shared among all of us, we can defer to them for guidance, for the light that dissolves the shadows.

Here we have the personal memoirs of one such artist. We see the demons, the hurt and anger generated by repressed homosexuality or a suffocating religion without answers. But they're up on the screen whole as dragged from the bitterest place, to be vexed than overcome. The manner is petulant, childish. Of course I agree with Davies for example about the obsolete, useless monarchy sucking the blood of the people, but how am I for the better by listening to his obvious, venomous attack upon it? I can get that in every forum online pending the royal wedding, from casual talk on the street.

And what am I to make of the boy's dismay at the silence of god? Which the boy now not-quite grown up, perceives as indictment and completely ignores what comfort he was offered at the time by prayer. Surely, life is more complex than this.

When by the end of this we get the realization of what matters, a life lived in the present without hope or love, it rings hollow because it hasn't been embodied in the work itself, which is riddled with an old man's angst.

And this is not all of it. The elegy to the city and the time that shuffled it is too tricly, oh-so-sombre, so filled with yearnings. What emotion is here is so obvious, that Malick appears subtle by comparison to it. So easily, quickly digestible that in trying to sate so much, to gorge in it, it doesn't sate at all.

What little of this works is the symphony of the city. The kind of film they were making in 1920's Berlin or Moscow to eulogize the booming architecture. With the twist that here, it is the uniquely British genius and propensity for creating a dismal urban landscape that appeals. The drab, grey routine. But I'd rather get this from The Singing Detective, which weaves it into a multifaceted story than a simple nostalgia. Or get the same experience Davies wants for his films from Zerkalo.

I suspect this will fare better for the people who share his vexations with religion and society, and who can relax in them. Me, I can't relax in anything without consideration for what the images and voices in it mean. With movies that transport, I'm always interested in the place they transport to. This is not one of those places.

a melancholic memoir filled with a bitter tone of loss and regret

[gregking4 · 6/10 · 27 August 2009]

This evocative mood piece will resonate strongly with those who have seen Terence Davies' autobiographical film Distant Voices, Still Lives, a haunting portrait of a family in post-war Liverpool, which is widely regarded as one of the best British films of the past twenty years. This documentary tracing the history of Liverpool in the post WWII years is a deeply personal film for Davies, who explores the way in which the city has changed over 60 years. Drawing upon his own memories of his childhood and a wealth of archival footage, Davies explores the dichotomy of Liverpool – the character of the old city and the impersonal nature of the new – and the conflict between his Catholic upbringing and his homosexuality. Davies reveals how his love of movies and the wrestling helped save him. His rich, erudite and poetic narration adds a rich texture to the material, which explores how the working class city of Liverpool has lost much of its sense of identity over time. The film is filled with anecdotes drawing upon his childhood memories, all of which are beautifully illustrated by archival footage accompanied by popular songs from the era. This richly evokes a time and a place. Davies draws upon poetry, popular songs from yesteryear as source material for many of his quotes and literary readings. Davies also displays a wonderfully iconoclastic sense of humor, as he colorfully expresses his disdain for Liverpool's favorite sons The Beatles, and his contempt for the Royal family. The film is a melancholic memoir filled with a bitter tone of loss and regret. Of Time And The City is a much more accessible film than Guy Maddin's recent obscure My Winnipeg, which similarly attempted a nostalgic look at the city of his birth.

Thoughtful and engrossing. Bitter but not twisted.

[angryangus · 9/10 · 8 July 2009]

I'm not from Liverpool, Scots actually, but have lived alongside it for forty years and it is one of the most fascinating cities architecturally, politically, socially and historically that one can come across. Even today its image and the mere mention of the name Liverpool can split the UK into two opposing factions. It has provided this country with some of the best (and some of the worst!) politicians, singers,poets, musicians, writers, statesmen, sportsmen and women, comedians, medicos, actors...you name it! It also had the blight of some of the worst housing, past and modern. It's had to put up with the blinkered meddling of inner-city planners since the fifties trying to rip the heart out of this jewel of a city. Fortunately some 'good men and true' had the vision and foresight from the 70's onwards to put the brakes on some of the excesses. But unforgivably, those inner-city planners took Scottie Road to the knackers yard instead of putting it out to stud.

Terence Davies casts a weary and at times tearful eye over the broad expanse of the city that shaped him. His homosexuality and the trauma that his deep catholic upbringing imposed on him made him a cynic. But that is not a bad thing. Cynicism is part of all of us and Davies imbibes his cynicism with mistrust and love and affection for a city that is in his marrow. Like the Scots, all true Liverpudlians, where e're they travel, are products of their upbringing and are never ashamed to admit it.

Watch this film with the sound off and it merely becomes a travelogue of the best and worst of this place. Watch and listen to Davies's commentary though, and the film takes on a vibrancy that fairly pulsates. Liverpool, through this film, becomes a city that breeds high blood pressure. For every beautiful building there is a slum, for every shopping mall there is a 'Bluecoat Chambers', for every wino begging on the subway there is a wisecracking Scouser trying to sell you something on the open-air markets, for every tragedy there is a joyous moment, for every factory that closes there is an entrepreneur starting up.

This polyglot of a city breathes..and it breathes life into its people. Walk down some of the old original cobbled alleys off Dale Street or Whitechapel (how did the planners miss them!!) and you can hear this city despairingly whisper into your ear.."Don't forget me!"

Davies captures the city and its contradictions and does it beautifully through his careful choice of film and especially through his words.

For him it's a love affair and like all such things there is hurt, despair, complacency, anger and moments of pure joy. He can hate his city with a vengeance but it flows through his veins. He knows it and he knows he'll never escape from it.

This is HIS Valentines card to HIS city and he has signed his name on it.

For the rest of us, this is Liverpool drawn on a wide canvas but in such sharp detail that it needs more than one viewing.

Highly recommended.

A trenchant, bitter, self serving, and self absorbed memoir.

[ikanboy · 6/10 · 20 April 2010]

This is, behind all the directorial flourishes, a view of working class Britain from above and beyond, and escaped. Davies' plummy voice tells us he has long departed from viewing his childhood home with any degree of warmth and instead drones on in sepulchurion disdain about the Church, his homosexual guilt, his artistic hauteur, as he hammers home, again and again from his dismal vantage point, an opinion complete in it's self absorption, self hate, projection, and most sadly heartlessness. C'mon Terry you must have had some mates, some fun, or at least some mentors who left you with some sense of the pulse of the place you grew up in!

Next up Blackpool and all it's masses awaiting intellectual dissecting by a dried up soul.

A masterpiece

[Anscombe · 10/10 · 18 July 2008]

Terence Davies's films always have wonderful openings. And his new film, "Of Time and the City", is no exception. The screen is dark, but we hear Liszt, and before we know it a cinema screen is rising before our eyes. As its orange curtains open, the colour fades, and we enter a black-and-white world of memory. We see Liverpool in the 19th century in all its imperial grandeur, as "Music for the Royal Fireworks" plays on the soundtrack. But that memory only drags us back to the present, to the contemporary remains of this grandeur, the majestic St. George's Hall, around which Davies's always fluid camera executes a series of breathtaking tracking shots. It is a truly magical opening, a reminder that, when it comes to creating transcendent cinema, Terence Davies is without peer.

The rest of the film could be seen as a kind of critique of these grandiose fantasies, because the film is not about the glory and wealth of Liverpool's architecture, but about its people. One of those people is Davies himself. But he is only one player in a cast of thousands: housewives, children, factory workers, happy holidaymakers, partying teenagers, and even the monarchy (the subject of a wonderfully vitriolic, and utterly deserved, attack at one point in the film). This is a film with real respect for the people of Liverpool, past and present – not only the workers of the 1950s, but also the young people of today. That is one reason why the film is so memorable, and so moving.

Throughout all of Davies's films we have the sense of a director doing something new with cinema: capturing the logic of memory; dramatising and allowing us to experience long-forgotten emotions; and creating a new cinematic style, at once formally rigorous and deeply humane. And like almost all of his films, "Of Time and the City" is both personal and universal. But even though it is composed mainly of archive footage of Liverpool, it would be a mistake to think of it as a documentary about the city, not least because doing so runs the risk of leading know-nothings to complain about the fact that it says nothing about the Toxteth Riots, or Liverpool football club, and so on. The film is personal, and therefore partial. But it is never solipsistic. It resonated with me deeply, even though I was not alive in the 1950s (and have never even been to Liverpool).

It is a film of many memorable moments: the destruction of terraces and the building of high rises, to the sound of "The Folks Who Live on the Hill"; footage of the forgotten generation of men who fought in the Korean War (including Davies's own brother); the extraordinary tracking shot across what seems like the whole sweep of Liverpool, from the shops to the docks. And on one level it is a simple, even straightforward film. But on another level it is very complex, full of fascinating and unexpected transitions and juxtapositions, and demands multiple viewings.

Quite simply, "Of Time and the City" is a masterpiece, which demonstrates – as if it needs demonstrating! – that Terence Davies is one of the greatest film-makers alive today. As you can tell, I loved it!

Unfortunately tinged with bitterness

[howard.schumann · 6/10 · 7 February 2010]

His first film since House of Mirth in 2000, Terence Davies' elegiac documentary Of Time and the City is a snapshot of memories from his formative years in Liverpool, England, a city mostly known to the world as the home turf of the Beatles. Consisting of archival footage, personal photographs, and contemporary video, Of Time and the City is not meant as a historical document or a linear chronology of events but as a poetic tribute to the city in which he lived from 1945 until 1973, a tribute, however, that is unfortunately tinged with bitterness toward the institutions that made his life as a gay man full of anguish.

Proclaiming that "the world was young and oh how we laughed", Davies shows us glimpses of early days at the beach with extras serving as stand-ins for his family, football matches with their huge crowds, and many, many children with smiling faces. There are also photos of working class families going about their daily chores, carrying their laundry down the street to neighborhood laundries on the top of their head, and buildings defaced with prominent graffiti. To provide context for the images, the film's soundtrack offers bits of popular and classical music, operatic arias, excerpts from radio programs, and Davies' own narration of passages from Yeats, Joyce, Engels, Chekhov, Jung, and Eliot, all delivered in a tone of solemn incantation.

Davies remembers his love for American movies and how he was addicted to Hollywood musicals, westerns, and dramas when he was a young man. Highlighting the appearance of Gregory Peck at the Ritz Theatre across the river from Liverpool, Davies recounts that "my love was as muscular as for my Catholicism, without any of the drawbacks." Raised as a devout Catholic, the director, now 64, seems to reserve his best barbs for the institution that thwarted his self expression, telling us that religion is "all a lie" and that he has become a "born-again atheist" even while acknowledging his guilt for going to wrestling matches to sneak a feel at passing bodies.

To the music of the Ewan McColl song "Dirty Old Town" from 1949 that evokes the factories of northern England, the film shows us the poverty and the slums that were torn down in the 1960s only to be replaced by sterile high rise projects which did little to alleviate the poverty. "We had hoped for paradise", Davies proclaims, "we got the anus mundi", a phrase that does not require a translation. He also does not spare the British monarchy from his venom, calling the coronation in 1953, "Betty and Phil and a thousand flunkies." He notes the amount of money that was "wasted on the monarchy...privileged to the last," while the rest of the population, "survived in some of the worst slums in Europe!" As for the Fab Four, the only mention they are given is a condescending "yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah," when they are shown in a Liverpool gig. Following the tradition of what he calls "the British genius for creating the dismal," Davies does nothing to lighten the gloom or show the resiliency of the folks in that "dirty old town" but offers only a decidedly skewed look at a vibrant creative city, distorted by his own memories of isolation. Calling his film his "chanson d'amour for all that has passed," Davies fails to communicate the warmth and love implicit in that label. He quotes Chekhov that "the golden moments pass and leave no trace", yet fails to see that for the golden moments to leave their mark, one needs to look past the anger and expand one's vision to see the "Penny Lanes" and the "Strawberry Fields Forever".

Poetical, polemical and romantic

[Robert_Woodward · 9/10 · 17 November 2008]

Of Time and the City is a very personal portrait of the city of Liverpool. Created by Liverpool-born director Terence Davies, funded by Northwest Vision and Media and released in the year that the city holds the status of European Capital of Culture, this film charts the tumultuous story of Liverpool in the time-frame of the director's life. The city's story slides from the high hopes of the post-war era to the ominous onset of the Korean War, plunging into the malaise of tower block housing and declining industries before the gradual revival and regeneration of the late twentieth century.

The film consists largely of archive footage from across the past 60 years, book-ended with some new-filmed footage orchestrated by Davies himself. The old film used in Of Time and the City is superbly edited into a continuously evolving story. There are some astonishing images here, from the vibrancy of the absurdly overcrowded 1950's waterfront to the decay and destruction of council housing in subsequent decades. What really sets this film apart, however, is the unique delivery of Davies's commentary. By turns poetical, polemical and romantic, Davies elevates this film beyond a documentary to create a stirring work of art.

Although often bitter and iconoclastic, Davies possesses a terrific dry sense of humour, which he directs against some of Liverpool's most-recognised exports, including the Beatles and the city's famous football club, as well as the current Queen Elizabeth (or 'the Betty Windsor show' as he terms it). But beyond this invective there is great warmth in Davies's film: it is much more a celebration of the people of Liverpool than the known sights and sounds of Liverpool. The emphasis of the film footage – old and new – is on the lives of the ordinary people living in the city: children playing in crowded streets, families at the seaside, great crowds at sporting events. Davies sets these ordinary goings on to a soundtrack of superb classical music and intersperses them with numerous borrowed lines from literary greats, adapting high art to celebrate the lives of the people in Liverpool. Throughout the film there are also modest fragments of Davies's own story, which emphasises the deeply personal nature of this film.

Of Time and the City is not a methodical history of Liverpool's post-war history – such a film would have to run for a lot longer – and it is shot through with Davies's strong opinions and acerbic wit. His delivery is often challenging to follow, but it makes for a vivid and engrossing film whose depth and complexity merits repeated viewing.

A wonderful tone poem

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 11 July 2010]

Terrence Davies look at Liverpool and himself takes the form of a tone poem on film. Its a wonderful mix of sound and image and commentary that all comes together to make something special.

I don't know what to say about this film other than see it. I say that because this is a very hard film to talk about except unless you've seen it. The reason for this is that there really isn't a narrative as such more the flow of time with the result that I can't talk about sequences and such because its hard to say how they all fit together.

I will say that this film wonderfully creates a feeling of being in Liverpool over the course of time thanks to a skillful blend of new and old footage. Rarely does a film make one feel that one has actually been to the place its about.

If I have any reservations about the film its that Davies commentary sometimes takes a snide turn. Its not that I have a problem with how he says views the Royal Family, rather its that in changing his tone he changes the cadences of his words and their delivery and the magic spell he so carefully weaves breaks for an instant.

A wonderful film that's best seen in a dark room on a big screen with no distractions.

overpraised, overrated

[tommc-4 · 2/10 · 2 December 2008]

When I read the newspapers' reviews of Terence Davies "Of Time and the city" and they mentioned words like tone poem, melancholy recollection, I thought hmmm I'm going to enjoy this. Well let's start from the beginning, this autobiographical documentary of Liverpool , if it was a memoir full of Mahler and nostalgia it would be wonderful and to be fair it starts really well, with a black and white image of industrial Liverpool over which he quotes in his posh northern voice A.E.Housman's Blue Remembered hills, from A Shropshire Lad. And you think oh good, but then he goes on to make some banal statement and tags Karl Marx's name on the end of it to give it some cultural or political significance and for the next couple of minutes banal statement is followed my banal statement each ascribed to some great thinker from the higher cannon of western culture. He constantly has to display how well read he is in the early part of the movie, to an embarrassing degree, a silly statement is a silly statement no matter the eminence of the man who made it. Also the enjoyment of the film was spoiled my his curious pronunciation at times, he would be quoting some line of poetry or making some observation and he would rush to the end of a sentence with a great whooshing sound which completely subverted the intention of the text, bizarre. There are moments which are genuinely moving of which Davis can take no credit ; a winter park covered in snow, old women carrying their washing back from the washhouse on their heads, it's the nostalgia we bring to it as a viewer that gives it such potency, a society now vanished for good or ill. When I saw those black and white images I was transported back to my own lost childhood to my two dead parents to those lost familiar times. I love Terence Davies, I love his films he is a man of the highest sensibilities I want him to find personal and professional happiness, but this film has been over praised. I think everyone is aware that he has not made a movie for a number of years so they are desperate that this is a return to form, which it is not, and that it is a commercial success which I believe it is in art house terms. I just hope that he will find it easier to get financial support with his next film through his higher visibility in this, and in the next we shall all see his real ambition. Now it's my chance to show off, Davies takes his title for his documentary from the American author Thomas Wolfe's novel 'Of Time and the River' {1935}

Interesting at best but pretentious at worst – one of those love it or hate it things

[bob the moo · 20 August 2009]

Although I will proceed to contradict myself, this is one of those films that you will either hate or love. Over archive footage of Liverpool, Terrance Davies narrates his personal recollections and reflections of the city along with its history and changes from his birth onwards. It is a personal film for him no doubt because it is not so much of a "documentary" as it is a piece of poetry over images – it would not be out of place as an art installation somewhere (if it were structured and delivered differently). It is hard to review this because for some people the voice, the words and the images will combine to create a wonderfully personal experience that they are drawn into, more of an experience than just a film. However to other viewers (who will be unfairly told they "don't get it" or "aren't smart enough" and should "go back to Transformers 2") this will come over as pointless, annoying and right up itself.

And here is my contradiction, because I fell somewhere in the middle of this, wanting to love it but ultimately finding myself totally on the outside looking in. Throughout the whole film I was finding it sporadically interesting, whether in the footage or the narration there was stuff that stopped me getting bored. However I also had this niggling feeling that the film was being deliberately obtuse in what it was doing and that, in being so personal, Davies had forgotten that this was a film being sold to an audience, not just something he is making for free. By this I mean that there isn't anything that offers the viewer an olive branch to get into it – if you don't love it early then it will likely just leave you behind. At times the film does smack heavily of being pretentious for the sake of it and, while the negative voices and overly negative here, I can see the point of those that attack it as such.

Perhaps that is fine though, not every film will appeal to everyone and this is an art film that will always draw a small audience no matter where it is shown. I know many people loved it and believe me when I say that I did want to but somehow it just didn't work for me. I was left feeling remote from the subject of any scene and, although some aspects still interested me, at worst it did come over as a little pretentious. Worth a look for something different but it is certainly not for everyone.

Reviving a very old genre

[frankde-jong · 7/10 · 11 January 2024]

In the late 20's of the last century making films about city's was quite popular. I'ám thinking of films such as:

Berlin, die Sinfonie der Grosstadt (1927, Walter Ruttmann) Man with a movie camera (1929, Dziga Vertov) about various cities in the Soviet Union Menschen am Sonntag (1930, Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer and Rochus Gliese) also about Berlin.

A propos de Nice (1930, Jean Vigo)

Terence Davies deserves prais for picking up this tradition in the new century. In his film about Liverpool he only uses documentary images. So the influence he has on the final film consists of the following three decisions:

selection of the documentary material text of the voice over (spoken bij himself) soundtrack

Some words about each of these decisions.

The soundtrach is very diverse, consisting of both pop- and classical music. Director Terence Davies makes a little joke when he accompanies the rise if the Beatles with classical music.

Also the text of the voice over is very diverse. Quatations from poems on the one hand, but sarcastic comments on the other. One example of the last is calling the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 "the great Betsy Windsor show".

Last but not least the selection of the documentaru material. Davies makes urban renewal an important theme. With respect to this theme his opinion has much in common with the vision of Jacques Tati regarding France as shown in his film "Mon Oncle" (1958).

At no point however "Of time and the City" idealizes a past that never existed or wallows in nostalgia. That would be very unlikely anyway, with a homosexual director that grew up in the 50's.

A masterpiece and a genuine work of art

[MOscarbradley · 10/10 · 25 November 2008]

A portrait of a time, a city and a man; the time being the past, the city, Liverpool and the man, of course, Terence Davies, the acclaimed British film-maker who hasn't made a film in several years because no-one would give him the money and who, now, has been funded to make this, a documentary portrait of his home town, a memoir that ultimately says more about Davies than it does about Liverpool. This is very much a personal project for Davies who not only directed the film but who also wrote the script and narrates it as well. Judiciously, he has used mostly old newsreel footage with some contemporary material to look back at his relationship with Liverpool and the nation as a whole as if to say, this is what shaped him, this is what made him the man and the artist he is. The result, like most of what Davies has done in the past, is a masterpiece; a deeply moving and often very funny study of a vanished age, quite unlike other 'documentaries'. Davies makes no concessions to 'facts', except as he sees them. This, he is telling us, is my view of Liverpool; this, he tells us, is the Liverpool where I grew up and this, he tells us, is the Liverpool he abandoned.

Anyone familiar with Davies' earlier work, particularly "Distant Voices, Still Lives" and "The Long Day Closes", will recognize this as a Davies film from the opening moments, the only difference being that the images on screen are 'real' and not fabricated in a studio. But then, of course, they are only 'real' in so much as Davies chooses to make them real. Like the greatest of documentary film-makers Davies has 'fabricated' reality to suit his own ends. (He is very particular in what he gives us; he has little time for The Beatles or for the Catholic Church while childhood is very much to the fore). And, of course, because the film has more to do with Davies himself than it does with Liverpool, his relationship with the city comes across as somewhat ambivalent. 'We love the things we hate and we hate the things we love' he quotes quite early on and while he presents us with a much idealized vision of Liverpool for much of the time, he never shies away from showing us the poverty and the darker face of the city. One popular song he doesn't use on the soundtrack, (left out, I have no doubt, as being too 'cheesy'), is 'The Way We Were', not the Barbra Striesand version but Gladys Knight's, the one that begins with 'Try to Remember'; "Everybody's talking' about the good old days ... we look back and we think the winters were warmer, the grass was greener, the skies were bluer and smiles were bright").

On the other hand, if the 'autobiographical' trilogy and "Distant Voices, Still Lives" are anything to go by, we know that Davies' own childhood was far from rose-tinted. (The later, "The Long Day Closes", may be seen as being much more about Davies himself and was certainly 'softer' and more homoeroticized that "Distant Voices ..."). Where "Of Time and the City" scores over the 'fiction' films is in Davies' ability to move beyond the family circle to tackle wider issues, taking swipes at both the monarchy and the Catholic Church. I kept thinking, here is a man who will never get a knighthood nor will he ever get to heaven, although I doubt if any loving God would deny entry to so creative a subject as Davies despite his professed disbelief.

"Of Time and the City" is a thing of beauty as much as a painting, icon or piece of classical music and I can think of no director in the history of the cinema who can marry music to imagery as beautifully or as profoundly as Davies, (and when are the CD soundtracks to his films going to be released). "Of Time and the City" is a work of art worthy of its creator and in a year when Liverpool has been designated European Capital of Culture, I can think of no more fitting a tribute.

Of Time and the City

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 2 May 2024]

At times Terence Davies provides a really quite entertaining and insightful commentary here as he takes us through his reminiscences of growing up in the English city of Liverpool. Famed around the world for "The Beatles" it was also the home to many a famous bard, poet, songster, thespian and soap manufacturer. Using a plethora of archive material it illustrates just how this city was affected after the devastation of WWII followed by decades of stagnant, socialist-leaning, civic administration that presided over the relentless decline of a city that is populated by sparky and stoic individuals determined to keep a sense of humour, proportion and purpose even if their surroundings inspired little by way of hope. Many elements of this could just as easily apply to other industrial British cities like Glasgow or Sheffield, and the imagery of the ghastly urban architecture that saw a surfeit of grey and concrete monstrosities clutter up the landscape could probably be transplanted to any number of cities where buildings that were unfit for habitation were replaced by those that were ugly as sin but at least had water running where it was supposed to. The use of some rousing classical music can seem a little incongruous at times, and some of his narrative does rather stereotype the population and his perception of their views, priorities and attitudes but it's an interesting and engaging look at a city where optimism is only now starting to make it's presence felt.

The Terence Davies show

[bandw · 9/10 · 30 November 2014]

This is billed as a documentary about post WWII Liverpool, but it is primarily autobiographical musings from director Davies who grew up in Liverpool in the 1950s. He has stitched together here archival footage, newsreels, amateur video, music, narration, quotes, and his own cinematic work to form an affecting whole.

The movie has a melancholy cast to it, thinking of how time erases places and people. Davies comments, "But where, oh, where are you, the Liverpool I knew and loved? Where have you gone without me? And now I am an alien in my own land." The images presented from the early times make life look difficult, but there is an authenticity to them. This was encapsulated for me in Davies' comment about sports being played at a time before the athletes punched the air in victory.

Davies has little truck with the public housing towers populating the City, commenting on municipal architecture as being dispiriting, illustrating "the British genius for evoking the dismal." He has strong opinions, often dished out as cynicism with a touch of humor. He refers to the British royalty of the time as the Betty Windsor show and Elizabeth and her husband as Betty and Phil. He refers to a Cardinal's new robes as the Vatican's answer to Schiaparelli. The Catholic Church comes in for some heavy criticism, in no small part because of the misery its position on homosexuality caused him. He came to view his time spent in prayer (until his knees bled he says) as wasted, proclaiming himself to be a born again atheist.

Davies has real genius for matching music with image, often for ironic effect. The score ranges from popular hits, like The Spinners version of "Dirty Old Town" and the Hollies version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," to the haunting choral piece "Privagheati si va rugati" by Branesti, the lush "Concertino for Guitar" by Bacarisse, and Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. The musical accompaniment is what raises this film above the ordinary--if someone does not appreciate that, then he will probably not much appreciate the film.

Much of the film is in black and white and rather downbeat. However, early on there are scenes of current Liverpool buildings filmed in color that use inspiring camera work, together with Handel's Water music, to create a positive image. The final scenes depict some of the stately statuary and majestic architecture of the City. The penultimate scene of the City skyline at the base of a rainbow, appropriately accompanied by Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, has the film ending on a somewhat upbeat note.

Davies intersperses quotes from famous people along the way, some of which he credits, but many he does not, like quotes from T.S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson. I was left wondering what was original with Davies. He has a good voice and narrates effectively.

Describing this film in words does disservice to it, it is like describing what a poem is about rather than experiencing the poem for yourself.

One man's personal experience of the transition of his hometown

[bubsy-3 · 10/10 · 18 June 2009]

"Of time and the City" is a movie that begs

to be shown in an art museum. It is a 71 minute experience of

videos and photos accompanied by spoken prose, poetry, and music

of one man's experience of the transition of Liverpool. It is almost

a documentary of sorts. Whatever it is, it is mesmerizing, absorbing, and truly magnificent. I honestly believe that this film will be part of many video displays in museums throughout the world. We first experience Liverpool early in the 20th century when the author is young then experience Liverpool throughout his childhood, his adolescent years, young adulthood, adulthood, and finally, the sadness of what once was in reminiscence.

A visual symphony

[malcp · 10/10 · 10 June 2010]

This film is a subjective essay, and if you like the Church, the Pope, and the Queen and enjoy a stereotypical view of a green and pleasant post-war Britain, then it probably isn't for you. The realities of slum terraces and the tenement blocks that replaced them are here refreshingly and honestly celebrated by someone with the wit and wisdom to look beneath the usual, superficial glazing of nostalgia that makes some people think that we're living in a Britain now that is broken in comparison to the good old days. The truth is exposed time and time again through these images, and the accompanying words and music. It covers the period from the time when polishing the doorstep was a back-breaking social necessity, up to the 1980's by which time the poor in Britain's cities were expunged of any remaining dregs of social interaction and when the new tenements - built to replace the slums - were already falling into slums themselves. In focusing on one city, and one set of memories, the film successfully captures an essence of place that goes beyond Liverpool. Its subheading is "a love song and a eulogy", but this simply conveys the way in which this film evokes emotion. In truth, this 'visual symphony of rhythmic images' is nothing less than a stunning work of art.

Very dull

[KnightsofNi11 · 5/10 · 9 May 2011]

Of Time and the City is a nostalgic look at the history of Liverpool, England. Terence Davies is a well known British director and he made this film as an examination of his childhood and what it was like growing up in Liverpool. He dabbles in Christianity, homo-eroticism, and lots of classical music. He examines just how all of this affected him and what it meant to him in the context of Liverpool. The film is told through archival footage and Terence Davies' narration which is a mix of bitter yet telling. This is obviously a very personal film for Davies, yet I myself can't relate in the slightest. Maybe you have to be 60 years old and from Liverpool to really understand this film and understand Davies' intentions. I'm neither of these things so this film did nothing for me.

In a nutshell I just don't understand the purpose of this film. It is Terence Davies reliving his childhood and the things which have made him into what he is today. He does so eloquently and poetically, yet it doesn't make any more relevant to me or any more interesting to watch. The film is very dull and can easily lull you to sleep. There is little to this film if you can't relate to anything going on. I'm not saying that in order for a film to be good you have to be able to relate to it on some level, but if you can't then the film should at least be well made and compelling. Of Time and the City is not very interesting and its only about as well made as a small film like this can be.

Creating an entire film out of narration, piano music, and archival footage just doesn't make for a terribly interesting film. Of Time and the City is not visually striking and everything being discussed doesn't strike any notes with me. The film is very stagnant as it switches between footage with narration over it to footage with music over it. The visuals seem fairly relevant while Davies narrates, but then they become random and meaningless when the music is played over them. At this point it really just feels like filler, something a 74 minute film doesn't need.

Maybe I just completely missed the point of Of Time and the City, or maybe you have to have a very specific background and interest to enjoy this film. I feel like if you are out of the "target audience" like myself then your chances of enjoying this film are dashed. This film did nothing emotionally for me and I was nothing but bored for an hour and fourteen minutes.

Sometimes glorious, at times just pretentious

[rick_7 · 11 June 2010]

Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, 2008) - The fifth feature from Britain's greatest living director, Terence Davies, was shot for just £250,000 as part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations. His first movie since 2000, it followed years of failed, thwarted projects. Anyone familiar with Davies' work will recognise his pet concerns here, as he uses the city as a canvas on which to paint memories of childhood and lost innocence. He no longer recognises the city; barely recognises himself. Davies delivers an intensely personal voice-over that's tragic, verbose (he has a nice turn of phrase) and ripe for parody, offering one part incomprehensible wordiness to every dose of pithy poetry.

Some have hailed this as the director's greatest achievement, but it is only when Davies stops yapping and dedicates himself to those unparalleled fusions of music and nostalgic visuals - passages of lyricism, irony and sorrow - that the film really approaches the brilliance of his earlier work. The sequence set to Peggy Lee's The Folks Who Live on the Hill, charting the move from terraced housing to the false dawn of high-rise blocks, is one of the best things he has ever done. Oddly, though, the continuation of that thread, which seems to stress the terrible human cost of such schemes as young children return to the hellish towers, is interrupted by Davies going on about municipal architecture being a bit of an eyesore, comprehensively undercutting the effect. On second viewing, Of Time and the City looks the same as first time around - only more so. It's erratic, lurching from truth to redundant repetition, though when it works, it's glorious.

Shadows of time...

[Greywolf907 · 9/10 · 23 January 2010]

I found this excellent Terence Davies film mainly for my father, a now 75 year old scouser with a hankering for the city of his birth.

My father, Like writer and director Davies was born into the city a Catholic, and had a typical Liverpool upbringing throughout the war years and beyond until joining the army as a boy soldier in the mid fifties.

I sat and watched this magnificent film with him..Davies chosen words and music, evocative of more than one childhood clearly.

It is a masterwork and not just for those of the city, or even for those of the era.....Liverpool is a stunning city, unlike any other place on earth and fully deserving of this piece.

Davies waxes lyrically and spits venomous cynicism in equal measure throughout this highly regarded work.

See it when you can.

A great disappointment

[Redcitykev · 4/10 · 15 January 2009]

On BBC TV there is a regular half-hour programme called 'Grumpy Old Men', on which the likes of Arthur Smith, Noddy Holder, and others - within the 45-60+ group - let rip about the state of modern society and, usually, how it was so much better in their days. After watching this diatribe from Mr Davis it would not surprise me to see him turning up on a later series of the programme due to the fact that this film, poetic as it may have been, came across as no better than a glorified 76 minute version of it.

This is not to say that the film does not have its moments, because it most certainly does. When he is riling against the British Monachy, or religion - the Catholic church in particular, the film comes alive even if you disagree with what he is saying, maybe even finding it offensive. But the trouble with the film is that these moments are few and far between, and too much time is taken up with dull, pointless views of dull, pointless buildings, often making blindingly obvious points that have been many times before (yes, we know the high-rise homes very quickly disintegrated into slums that were no better, and often worse, then those back-to-back terrace houses they replaced).

When it came to the people of Liverpool the shots he included again seemed to be those we have seen 100's of times before on other, better, documentaries about the city. Kiddies playing in the streets, playgrounds full of swings and slides etc, etc... yes, yes, we know it was all so much better then - apart from the increased infant deaths, illnesses caused by poverty and poor diet etc! Then comes the music! How can Mr Davis dismiss the Beatles and the whole of the Mersey sound in just a few fleeting moments, and pretty damning moments as well. Does he not realise that these pop/rock groups, along with Liverpool and Everton FC's, did more to put the city of Liverpool on the map, rising its profile across the globe and helping it to recover its pride and place in the world following on from the collapse of its traditional industries than any other thing? The legacy of that period is still felt today, be it in the eternal popularity of the Beatles and other groups from the 1960's, the modern classical stylings of Sir Paul McCartney, McCartney's legacy to the city in LIPA, or the recent pop and rock sounds of such groups as The Zutons etc, and this is something that Mr Davis should have acknowledged in this film.

Before watching this film I had viewed the new Clint Eastwood film 'Changeling', which has a running time of some 2 1/2 hours, yet that film seemed to last about half that time, whilst this film runs for just over 76 minutes and yet seemed much, much longer. Mr Davis is a very talented film maker, as films like 'The Long Day Closes' have shown, and surely it was not beyond his fierce-some intellect to create a fictional film in which his sentiments could have been expressed in a much more entertaining way. Maybe now he has got all this off his chest he will get back to doing what he does best and give us a film worthy of his talents next time round.