At a glance this movie looks like a documentary, but when you get to watch the whole of it you will realize that you cannot say easily that it is like other documentaries, or if it is a documentary at all. This film is a collage of different found footage that is arranged in a manner that takes the viewer on a journey through time to the place where the filmmaker Terence Davies lived, Liverpool.
Watching the movie is like taking a boat ride on the river of thoughts and remembrances of Davies. You’ll feel his love-hate relationship with the place that molded him into who he is now. The film is good in its own way, but if you are not quick at aligning your point of view to someone else’s (and in this, it’s Davies’), you’ll probably be bored, if not annoyed, with the film.
The music is one of the film’s strong points. Davies surely has an ear for music (as a filmmaker should have), but I could not agree with him in saying that the Beatles is “one of the worst blights to ever strike the face of music”.
The film is more about Terence Davies than about Liverpool, though he may say that it’s about Liverpool. The film is about how he loves and hates the place and that particular point in time when he was younger. In this film you also can feel his anger, especially his anger about organized religion. He even declared himself a born again pagan and blames religion for the joyless youth that he got. This film is Davies’ declaration of who he is and what he’s been through. Liverpool just happened to be there when he was there, just happened to be a part of his life that he now uses to paint a picture of himself.
Overall, the film is well-crafted, and I easily can give it an 8 out of 10.
