"The Long Day Closes" is set in Kensington- not the ritzy, upper-class district of West London but a run-down working-class quarter of Liverpool. The time is the late forties or early fifties. The main character is Bud, a shy, sensitive 11-year-old schoolboy who lives with his widowed mother and siblings. Bud's family is a loving one who make up for in warmth and spiritual values- they are devout Catholics- what they lack in money, so unlike many tales of working-class life this is not a slice of misery porn. (Apart, that is, from the misery caused by the weather. In keeping with the north-west's reputation as the wettest part of England, it always seems to be raining).
Nor is it made in the "kitchen sink" social-realist style so popular in the British cinema of the fifties. Although some of the interiors recall those seen in kitchen sink films, writer-director Terence Davies was aiming at a poetic rather than a social-realist treatment of his source material. There is no real plot line. Scenes of Bud at home, at school, in church, in the cinema or hanging out with his friends are juxtaposed in a sequence which pays little heed to the demands of strict chronology or of story development. The cinematography is distinguished by the use of long tracking shots and unusual camera angles, including overhead shots. It is said to contain the longest continuous shot of a carpet in cinema history.
Davies's use of music is also important. The soundtrack includes not only the popular music of the period but also jazz and classical tracks, often chosen to enhance the particular mood of a scene. The film's title derives from a poem by the Victorian poet Henry Chorley, which we hear in a musical setting by Sir Arthur Sullivan (of "Gilbert and..." fame) over the closing credits. The poem is ostensibly a description of an evening scene, but like many poems on this particular theme it can also be read as a poetic meditation on death or on the transience of earthly things and was doubtless chosen because it seems appropriate to the film's theme of nostalgia for things past.
This is a difficult film to review because it is so different from virtually anything else I have ever seen. While I can appreciate what Davies was trying to do, this has never really been my favourite film. Its problem, in my view, is its length. Now that we no longer divide films into "A" and "B" movies, it is difficult to get a film shown in cinemas, even arthouse cinemas, if they are not of the regulation feature length, but films which are more marked by poetic or artistic qualities than they are by things like narrative or character development often need to be considerably shorter than the standard 120, or even 90, minute slot. It seems to me that something like "The Long Day Closes" falls into this category. Had it been shorter, say around an hour in length, it would not have outstayed its welcome in the way it does, but Davies would have had problems getting it into cinemas. He might even have had difficulties getting it shown on British television, which can be reluctant to take risks. 5/10
Nor is it made in the "kitchen sink" social-realist style so popular in the British cinema of the fifties. Although some of the interiors recall those seen in kitchen sink films, writer-director Terence Davies was aiming at a poetic rather than a social-realist treatment of his source material. There is no real plot line. Scenes of Bud at home, at school, in church, in the cinema or hanging out with his friends are juxtaposed in a sequence which pays little heed to the demands of strict chronology or of story development. The cinematography is distinguished by the use of long tracking shots and unusual camera angles, including overhead shots. It is said to contain the longest continuous shot of a carpet in cinema history.
Davies's use of music is also important. The soundtrack includes not only the popular music of the period but also jazz and classical tracks, often chosen to enhance the particular mood of a scene. The film's title derives from a poem by the Victorian poet Henry Chorley, which we hear in a musical setting by Sir Arthur Sullivan (of "Gilbert and..." fame) over the closing credits. The poem is ostensibly a description of an evening scene, but like many poems on this particular theme it can also be read as a poetic meditation on death or on the transience of earthly things and was doubtless chosen because it seems appropriate to the film's theme of nostalgia for things past.
This is a difficult film to review because it is so different from virtually anything else I have ever seen. While I can appreciate what Davies was trying to do, this has never really been my favourite film. Its problem, in my view, is its length. Now that we no longer divide films into "A" and "B" movies, it is difficult to get a film shown in cinemas, even arthouse cinemas, if they are not of the regulation feature length, but films which are more marked by poetic or artistic qualities than they are by things like narrative or character development often need to be considerably shorter than the standard 120, or even 90, minute slot. It seems to me that something like "The Long Day Closes" falls into this category. Had it been shorter, say around an hour in length, it would not have outstayed its welcome in the way it does, but Davies would have had problems getting it into cinemas. He might even have had difficulties getting it shown on British television, which can be reluctant to take risks. 5/10