Movie

Distant Voices, Still Lives

1988 · 84 min

A haunting, music-filled memory piece that drifts between joy and pain, asking you to sit quietly with a family's wounds.

Tagline: In memory, everything happens to music.
Overview: Siblings Maisie and Tony, along with their mother, gather for their sister Eileen's wedding. It is a joyous occasion, but through flashbacks, it becomes clear that the family was not always happy. Their father was physically abusive to his wife and left the children emotionally traumatized. As a result, the children have grown into unhappy adults, looking for love they didn't receive when they were young.

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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone: melancholicstrength 3 of 3
darkstrength 2 of 3
bleakstrength 2 of 3
warmstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: family
trauma
memory
grief
class
Places: big city
home
Era: period
Audience: adult
Form: nonlinear
Content intensity: Gore none
Language mild
Violence strong
Sex mild

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	1
Horror	2
Humour	3
Realism	8
Romance	3
Tension	6
Darkness	8
Complexity	7
Emotional weight	9

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Where to watch in the UK

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Details

Genres: drama, music
Directed by: Terence Davies
Written by: Terence Davies
Starring: Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh, Lorraine Ashbourne, Dean Williams, Sally Davies, Susan Flanagan, Nathan Walsh
Cinematography: William Diver, Patrick Duval
Runtime: 84 min
Country: United Kingdom, Germany
Languages: English

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Distant Voices, Still Lives

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