This review was commissioned by Brock Jahnke over on my Ko-fi account.
The flowers are wilting. It’s not immediately obvious during the extended opening credits. We see the vase of flowers and at first the only discernible motion comes from the shifting names of cast and crew. The classical music lulls the viewer into such a calm meditative state that by the time one notices that dead petals have begun covering the table, it’s far too late. Such is how life functions in the mind as well–seemingly permanent and stable, until it’s too late to realize that the petals have been drooping off the whole time.
Once again, Terence Davies puts together a string of memories drawn from his own childhood experience in post-war Liverpool. In both theme and technique, Long Day parallels Distant Voices. Both open on lingering shots of a narrow townhouse staircase as the characters of the past begin to materialize. Here, Davies ability to juxtapose the innocent glow of childhood with the difficulty of the world beyond comes into stark focus once again. One sees a dark and disused townhouse crumbling down before fading into the warmer home of years past. Decay and impermanence lurk at the edges of the film the whole time, emphasized in the closing sequence by a reprise of a lecture on erosion. Destruction and life go hand in hand, there is no joy without the end of joy.
As opposed to the shifting perspectives and memories of Distant Voices though, this time Davies shows us the world through the eyes of Bud (Leigh McCormack), a young boy living with his mother (Marjorie Yates) and siblings Kevin (Anthony Watson), John (Nicholas Lamont), and Helen (Ayse Owens). There’s a greater sense of focus here with the film shifting between Bud’s memories and his fantastic daydreams often punctuated by dialogue he’s seen at the movies. In this regard, a few moments come to mind. A brief daydream at school where Bud imagines a rain-swept ship pulling up beside him. Later on, he pictures a perfectly framed Christmas dinner where his family greets him with bright smiles. Another key moment comes when he stands in prayer before a crucifix and vividly imagines the nails being driven into Christ’s hands, the cross being raised, and a sharp cry of pain from the Messiah–as though Bud’s own sins pounded the nails in himself.
Altogether, it creates the effect of a childhood both remembered and imagined, all filtered through the methodically placed and moved camera. It’s a gorgeously rendered and performed all throughout. Davies gets an intimate and true-felling performances from the cast here. McCormack threads the needle between wide-eyed innocence and soon to come struggle. Marjorie Yates radiates a peaceful warmth as the family matriarch, but with a yearning pain beneath the surface well. Watch her sing an old sing with Bud on her lap, shedding a few quiet tears when she recalls that her father used to sing it to her. Then, there’s the lovely pair of comic relief performances from Tina Malone as Edna and Jimmy Wilde as Curly. Davies has a great talent for rendering these traditionally bickering couples with just enough warmth and bite to be both funny and endearing at once.
It’s all so lovely, and it all fades away. The nonlinear plot dissolves from one moment to the next, and all moments end. That doesn’t always dim them though. Sometimes they stay shining far away, like the dead stars Bud gazes at as the long day closes.
Rating (Letterboxd scale): ****
