In this film, Terence Davies has managed to give the viewer a complex understanding of not only the lives (both external/social and internal/emotional) of a group of characters, but also of the experience of life in a particular time, place and social class that achieves incredible universality in its adherence to the specific details of the setting. The kinds, and levels, of understanding we come away from the film with rivals the kind we get from reading great literature, something which the medium of film has rarely achieved.
As an example of the profound effect this film can have, when I saw this recently at Cinematheque Ontario's Davies retrospective (and what a difference seeing this on actual film makes when compared to the image and sound quality of the VHS tape available in North America!) the audience sat motionless and in silence during the entire end credits, and for a few moments after the lights came up (whereas at a typical Cinematheque screening, most of the audience begins filing out while the credits roll...) This film is one of the best examples I've seen of what can be achieved through the combination of images and sounds unfolding in time; through characters that can't be defined by 'objectives' and personality 'quirks' but demand to be seen as full human beings; and through a non-linear narrative structure which asks us to draw parallels between and find meaning in the relation of moments separated by time and not linked through typical cause-and-effect plotting.
The kinds of stories being told by adherents of the Syd Field/Robert McKee brand of screen writing, with sympathetic protagonists, clear-cut conflicts, objectives and obstacles, resolutions, etc., etc., pale in comparison to this -- in short, none of those conventions of traditional cinematic storytelling (or 'rules of the formula') have anything to do with life as it is lived, whereas this film does.
As some other commenters have already mentioned, the fact that this film (and his earlier Trilogy) haven't had a proper North American DVD release yet (why not Criterion???) is a real shame.
As an example of the profound effect this film can have, when I saw this recently at Cinematheque Ontario's Davies retrospective (and what a difference seeing this on actual film makes when compared to the image and sound quality of the VHS tape available in North America!) the audience sat motionless and in silence during the entire end credits, and for a few moments after the lights came up (whereas at a typical Cinematheque screening, most of the audience begins filing out while the credits roll...) This film is one of the best examples I've seen of what can be achieved through the combination of images and sounds unfolding in time; through characters that can't be defined by 'objectives' and personality 'quirks' but demand to be seen as full human beings; and through a non-linear narrative structure which asks us to draw parallels between and find meaning in the relation of moments separated by time and not linked through typical cause-and-effect plotting.
The kinds of stories being told by adherents of the Syd Field/Robert McKee brand of screen writing, with sympathetic protagonists, clear-cut conflicts, objectives and obstacles, resolutions, etc., etc., pale in comparison to this -- in short, none of those conventions of traditional cinematic storytelling (or 'rules of the formula') have anything to do with life as it is lived, whereas this film does.
As some other commenters have already mentioned, the fact that this film (and his earlier Trilogy) haven't had a proper North American DVD release yet (why not Criterion???) is a real shame.