MovieChat Forums > Of Time and the City (2008) Discussion > Some Thoughts From an American (uh-oh......

Some Thoughts From an American (uh-oh...)


I have to admit - I saw this last night in New York, and I didn't much like it.

However - after reading through a few comments, my dislike might be from a number of things: I'm not that knowledgeable about Davies' other films (I have heard of them, but I haven't seen them); while I've been to Liverpool (god, 25 years ago now) and I know generally how England has changed in recent years, I don't have a deep knowledge or emotional attachment to the city and images. Also, the description I read of the movie described it as a documentary about Liverpool worked around Davies' childhood; it's not really that, and it's even something beyond the story of how a young gay Catholic man became an adult during a time and place when the Church was paramount in its members' lives and homosexuality was considered a legal and moral offense. I wasn't, however, really able to tap into that "something beyond" during my viewing.

This also may be a movie "too" British for others without the background to fully appreciate. You'd have to know about the shipyards, and the bombing during the war, and how Liverpool's heart has always been very working-class to understand a good part of it. As it is, I don't know anything about Liverpool's link to the Korean War and Vietnam, something I'll have to go remedy.

I did enjoy what I saw him trying to do with the structure - that was very admirable. But it may be a matter of me not being up on the background to fully appreciate what was before me.

So while I didn't much like it this time around, I'm fully willing to watch some more Davies, let that settle in, and give it another chance. Unfortunately, it's not going to be fore the movie closes in New York City - that's in four days. %^<

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Davies might be a matter of taste, but for my money (and I'm a Yank too) "Distant Voices, Still Lives" and "The Long Day Closes" are masterpieces. So is "The House of Mirth"--probably the easiest (relatively speaking) film to start with--although "The Neon Bible" doesn't quite work. Anyway, it's certainly worth seeing more of his work. "Of Time" is atypical in that it's a documentary, something he hasn't done before. I didn't find it hard to relate to, though. The Liverpool historical stuff I didn't know about seemed more interesting than off-putting for the very reason that I hadn't known it before. But in any case, you might find his more narrative works more involving. Although "Distant" and "Day" are pretty abstract as storytelling goes, which is part of their originality.

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I bought Davies' film. He's a film genius and right on with his choice of music You know I hate my city. And I love my city. And with his OTATC you don't have to know about Liverpool or live there to understand his film. His film delves into the "touch points" we have with the geography of our lives. This is a different sort of "documentary". It's like a geo-emotional-poetic-musical affective essay on urban life.

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[deleted]

Another American here, but it matters not what one's nationality is - anyone should be able to emotionally connect with the material: the essence of the images and quotes and the overall themes are universal/collective and shimmering in the air we breathe.

Even though the film is a Liverpudlian semi-eulogistic palimpsest, we should all be able to emotionally connect with the gentrification and vast social/cultural changes depicted because we have all personally experienced all of that at one point or another in our own lives, and we are all witnessing those major changes daily as it occurs around the world.

Also, the historical references should be recognizable - the end of WWII, the marriage of pre-Queen Elizabeth to Philip, the Korean War, the coronation of Elizabeth, The Beatles' first record released, etc.

Of Of Time And The City -

A visual and auditory masterpiece; Tarkovskian echoes (specifically Zerkalo, and Tarkovsky's deipotent ability to cinematically convey the bifurcation of Time)

Exquisitely eidetic and daedalistic: waves of sorrow and waves of joy coursed through me as I watched this; it is a visual poem; its rich dissonance is wonderfully euphoric and nostalghic; you will be hypnotized by the images of degeneration and dereliction and squalour and bleakness and nameless vanishing faces, which make you feel the loss of memory and the loss of time

Poignantly and saccharinely resonates the diuturnal nature of physical space and faces and places and memory and time while paradoxically resonating the gradual deliquesce of physical space and faces and places and memory and time (Tarkovsky!) [wispy dew drops of Chariots Of Fire, Brideshead Revisited (1981)]

The focus on the UK's negative treatment of homosexuality and Davies' negative opinion of Catholicism and his personal anguish is subtle and understated (and thus effective) because historical images and specific pieces of evocative music are used to convey the criticism and Davies' personal agony, as opposed to verbal dialetics

The song He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother has a knew meaning for me; the scene in the film that corresponds to that song is one of the most powerful archival footage sequences in the film, and one of the most powerful moments I've ever watched in any documentary film

10/10

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Agree with what you have said and especially so about He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. I hadn't heard that song in many, many years (more or less forgot of it's existence) and hearing it come in in the film juxtaposed with the images was something extraordinary.

I'm due to be writing an exam about the film in less than 2 days so think I can claim watching it again as study haha

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An American who thought "Of Time and the City" a masterpiece!C'est tout!

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Another anti-American idiot.

P.S. I liked it too, am an American; but wouldn't quite go so far as 'masterpiece.'

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