Director: Terence Davies (The House of Mirth, Distant Voices, Still Lives)
Screenplay: Terence Davies
Producers: Roy Boulter, Sol Papadopoulos
MPAA Rating: PG
Running time: 72 min.

Sitting through the closing credits of Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City last winter, I felt a calmness that I hadn’t ever experienced after a film. Almost like someone had sung me a lullaby. When the lights came up, my companion turned to me and shattered the feeling with the words “Well, that was 80 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” The discussion started and after 20 minutes of back and forth he finally asked “Why do you like it?” I struggled with that question for some time but it took a second encounter with Davies’ film to make some sense of it and even this time, when asked why I liked it, I was at a bit of a loss.

I can understand the complaints, at least from my companions, and can see how others may feel the same way. Of Time and the City is billed as a film about Liverpool but if you’re going in expecting to learn everything there is to know about the city, you’re in for a surprise and perhaps disappointment. Where as Maddin’s My Winnipeg tackles the city from a very personal and often dream-like perspective, it still shares some of the history of Winnipeg. Davies’ film is less concerned with the city and more interested in the memories that it elicits. Of Time and the City is more of a man’s journey into his past and the events that shaped his life; they happen to be events that occurred in and around Liverpool.

To a backdrop of gorgeous and sometimes awe inspiring music, Davies shares photos and archival footage of the Liverpool he remembers. Children play on the streets, women wash clothing in communal areas, the streets are alive with chatter. Among these images and sounds we have Davies in his melodic baritone, sharing anecdotes from his youth: the Christmas traditions, the church going, his loss of faith and his rebirth into atheism.

As the years progress, the city falls into despair. The old brick homes begin to crumble and eventually are torn down to be replaced by towering concrete buildings jutting out among the rubble like towers of despair dotting the landscape. The people peer out of windows but the streets are mostly barren, as if the joy and happiness of the place has also been displaced. The buildings are boring, aesthetically unpleasing and akin to jails containing hundreds of cells. The difficulties of life take its toll on the inhabitants and it shows in their surroundings. Sadness seems to permeate through everything.

And then there is a surge, a rebirth of sorts. Once the wars end and starvation is no longer much of a concern, people entertain themselves the only way they know how; by getting out. Day trips to the beach, Orange Day parades, beauty competitions (when they were still innocent). Joy returns to Liverpool.

Somewhere along the way, Davies left, leaving behind the city to age and change without him. Upon his return, he remembers the city, fondly at first and then with a sort of pain. His Liverpool, the city of his youth, has changed. It’s nearly unrecognizable, the feelings and memories from his youth blocking his appreciation of the new city but in the closing moments, we are left with images of people on the streets. Happy people, the joy has returned to the city and there is a sort of reluctant acceptance from Davies; Liverpool has changed but it’s still his city.

Though the journey he takes us on isn’t exactly what some might expect, Davies does manage to share the changing faces of Liverpool and the people who lived and continue to live there. Though it is a documentary, it’s more about the filmmaker than it is about the city. We learn about the joys and hardships of growing up in Liverpool and the effects it had on Davies are apparent. What makes Of Time and the City such a joy to watch is the non-tangible emotions it dredges up. How it reminds you of the place you come from and the memories of growing up there and in this is the film’s great universality: regardless of where you are, you come from somewhere.

“We love the place we hate/We hate the place we love/We leave the place we hate/Then spend a lifetime trying to regain it.” Words that will forever stay with me; words I can relate to and words that sum up Of Time and the City beautifully.