Of time and the city- Terence Davies

Acclaimed British filmmaker Terence Davies revisits the city of his youth in the elegiac documentary OF TIME AND THE CITY. A deeply personal evocation of post-World War II Liverpool, the film is a patchwork visual poem woven from archival footage, a mash-up of classical and pop music standards, and Davies' own incantations--delivered in his lugubrious, at times overwrought, elocution. Revealing a caustic wit and a biting contempt for institutions such as the Catholic Church and British royalty, the director underscores his hatred of such symbols by depicting images of the environs of Liverpool's working class, an environment that Davies sneers at as demonstrating 'the British genius for the dismal'. From the decay of government-built council houses to the crumbling edifices of shipyards, Davies chooses to stare down an urban landscape that echoes his own troubled past. Davies speaks candidly of his own childhood experiences, from the spectre of Catholic guilt and the 'dark desires' of homosexuality awakened at professional wrestling matches, to the rapture of seeing Hollywood films and musicals--pain and pleasure the filmmaker has sought to come to terms with his whole adult life. Connecting a deeply personal biographical lens to the universal notion of time, place, and home, OF TIME AND THE CITY depicts the psychic dissonance of arriving 35 years later in a city where the ravages of urban blight and rapid gentrification have rendered it completely and utterly transformed.