This has to be one of British cinemas unsung masterpieces.In three parts equating to childhood manhood and old age it painstakingly delineates the details of a very ordinary life.Filmed in B/W it has a documentary feel to it and its Liverpool setting is indeed bleak.The main character is based on the life of the writer of the film Terence Davies and as such is autobiography as catharsis and confession.He is gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England and the stifling effects of his strict catholic upbringing only serve to deepen his guilt. It is a bleak story with some stark and terrifying imagery.Wilfrid Bramble aka Steptoe plays Daveies as the old man brilliantly.The deathbed scene and the way it is shot stay in the mind for ages. So with no light relief why see this?I can only say that it has a humanity and insight that are rare in cinema.He is in the same league as Loach and Leigh.
5 Reviews
Poignant, heartbreaking and ... oh so real
joepm2811 January 2024
I just watched all three of the component pieces of The Terence Davies Trilogy separately so I'll rate each one individually below. Yet, combined all three create a poignant and heartbreaking profile of a repressed homosexual man in mid 20th century Liverpool that so few may relate to in the 21st century. From lived experience, the film is so real of what many gay men went through for most of the 20th century. It is brilliant.
Children. 8 out of 10 As a boy in 1976, when this film came out, and as someone who was struggling with my own homosexuality back then, Children presented a slice of life that hit so close to home. The loneliness. The hiding. The longing. The sense of shame. And most of all the threats, at times real, other times imagined, of the bullying by other boys. Young Robbie Tucker (played by Phillip Mawdsley) comes off as almost catatonic at first. One might attribute this to opening scenes where we see Robbie being bullied. Yet, as the film progresses, so too does our understanding and appreciation of Tucker's struggles with family, with school and mostly with himself. These are interspersed with scenes of Tucker as a 30-ish young man. While perhaps dated, the film still resonates as to the struggle of growing up as a marginalized children, not just those who were LGBTQ+. For such a short film, under an hour, Children packs a bigger wallop than many other like films.
Madonna and Child 7 out of 10 Death and Transfiguration 7 out of 10 Each at less than 30 minutes, these two film don't pack as much of a wallop as Children, yet they build on young, middle aged and then older Robbie Tucker as his repressed sexuality haunts him. All of this is due to Tucker working to care for his mother and due to his stifling Catholic upbringing. It is just heartbreaking. The scene where Robbie is on the ferry crying in his loneliness is so very sad - and so resonant of the scene from Children when Robbie and his mother were on a bus and she was crying in like despair over her own life.
Terence Davies should be lauded for an uncanny representation of sexual repression in quietly wrenching manner.
Children. 8 out of 10 As a boy in 1976, when this film came out, and as someone who was struggling with my own homosexuality back then, Children presented a slice of life that hit so close to home. The loneliness. The hiding. The longing. The sense of shame. And most of all the threats, at times real, other times imagined, of the bullying by other boys. Young Robbie Tucker (played by Phillip Mawdsley) comes off as almost catatonic at first. One might attribute this to opening scenes where we see Robbie being bullied. Yet, as the film progresses, so too does our understanding and appreciation of Tucker's struggles with family, with school and mostly with himself. These are interspersed with scenes of Tucker as a 30-ish young man. While perhaps dated, the film still resonates as to the struggle of growing up as a marginalized children, not just those who were LGBTQ+. For such a short film, under an hour, Children packs a bigger wallop than many other like films.
Madonna and Child 7 out of 10 Death and Transfiguration 7 out of 10 Each at less than 30 minutes, these two film don't pack as much of a wallop as Children, yet they build on young, middle aged and then older Robbie Tucker as his repressed sexuality haunts him. All of this is due to Tucker working to care for his mother and due to his stifling Catholic upbringing. It is just heartbreaking. The scene where Robbie is on the ferry crying in his loneliness is so very sad - and so resonant of the scene from Children when Robbie and his mother were on a bus and she was crying in like despair over her own life.
Terence Davies should be lauded for an uncanny representation of sexual repression in quietly wrenching manner.
A great, great film.
Ollyda5 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
A genuine masterpiece. I learned about this film when it was included in a list of great forgotten films in the Observer newspaper. In order to see it though I had to buy a VHS copy from America. So it doesn't surprise me that there aren't more comments about it here.
The first part of the trilogy seems clearly influenced by the first part of the Bill Douglas trilogy (also very difficult to find - I saw this on the Sky Arts channel earlier this year) to which it bears a strong resemblance in style and content. Also a caning in the headmaster's office is reminiscent of a similar scene in "Kes".
The second part is quite different to Douglas. It is much more fluid and dynamic, interweaving the major themes of the work, homosexual longing, a son's love for his mother and personal religious experience. The mother's funeral,in particular, with the soundtrack of a lovely Doris Day song has a poetic quality which is deeply affecting.
The final part is concise and the death bed scene is remarkably powerful and unforgettable. Seeing this film and realising how outstanding it is makes me sad that it is not much more widely celebrated.
The first part of the trilogy seems clearly influenced by the first part of the Bill Douglas trilogy (also very difficult to find - I saw this on the Sky Arts channel earlier this year) to which it bears a strong resemblance in style and content. Also a caning in the headmaster's office is reminiscent of a similar scene in "Kes".
The second part is quite different to Douglas. It is much more fluid and dynamic, interweaving the major themes of the work, homosexual longing, a son's love for his mother and personal religious experience. The mother's funeral,in particular, with the soundtrack of a lovely Doris Day song has a poetic quality which is deeply affecting.
The final part is concise and the death bed scene is remarkably powerful and unforgettable. Seeing this film and realising how outstanding it is makes me sad that it is not much more widely celebrated.
An Amazing Director and Poignant film.
cpnotebook12 September 2008
I just watched these 3 short films last night.
I must say, It's quite eerie to have images of the film stick to your mind even though it was shot in black and white. I felt something at the end of the trilogy or the last scene which I've never seen before in any cinematic movie. The directors commentary stated that it was short in one take. It was beautiful yet intimidating and well eye opening.
You should definitely find this in your library there.
Since the dialog is limited, the most powerful line was in the last short film when the child was asked by the nun, "do you love god?" to which the boy replied "yes I do". It was a case of brain washed Catholicism where the child or children could not even say, "I don't know" in fear that turning against an unknowing God might bring down some unearthly punishment.
I loved it and has given me respect for more independent film makers like Davies.
I must say, It's quite eerie to have images of the film stick to your mind even though it was shot in black and white. I felt something at the end of the trilogy or the last scene which I've never seen before in any cinematic movie. The directors commentary stated that it was short in one take. It was beautiful yet intimidating and well eye opening.
You should definitely find this in your library there.
Since the dialog is limited, the most powerful line was in the last short film when the child was asked by the nun, "do you love god?" to which the boy replied "yes I do". It was a case of brain washed Catholicism where the child or children could not even say, "I don't know" in fear that turning against an unknowing God might bring down some unearthly punishment.
I loved it and has given me respect for more independent film makers like Davies.
It's like a symphony by Mahler
kow78916 December 2010
This can still be bought in the USA from Strand Releasing but you must go to their web site to do so. But why should you buy it, other than that is the only way you will see it. Not from birth, as the synopsis reports, but from childhood to death it is a portrait of male homosexual life in a repressive society. As so it the biography of millions of men who lived before 1972, and many who have come after. And it shows the viewer no mercy. As the writer of the synopsis for IMDb chooses to call the mother daunting, which I think he must have gotten from reading Martin Beibler rather than watching the movie, I ask you to watch the mother's face very carefully as her son reads their 'stars'. I don't know when the other reviewers think that the death scene begins, you could well say that the whole of 'death and transfiguration' is the death scene but lets say it begins after the nurse goes for the X-rays, the cutting between the reality of the remembered child and the reality of the hard death of the man is Mahler made film.
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