Long Day Closes
by Terence Davies
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Product details
Actor: Anthony Watson, Ayse Owens, Leigh McCormack, Marjorie Yates, Nicholas LamontDirector: Terence Davies
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 84 minutes
Release Date: 1995-01-17
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of Long Day Closes
Movie Review: What erodes at our childhood will form us for life
Summary: 5 Stars
Entering puberty is Hell! Do you remember? Do you recall the last days of your innocent years before the conflicted feelings hit? "The Long Day Closes" is a tender and intimate portrait of the long last year in the life of 11-year old, Bud, before "the long day closes" on his formative years and he enters that new time in life. It is 1955, and Bud lives in his modest Kensington townhome. He has a loving Mam,two virile older brothers and an older sister. It is never explained where Dad is; he just simply is not.
Like the rest of Terence Davies written and directed films, we are allowed to feel and experience Bud's last year of childhood through a stream of song, movie clips, bullying at school, intense religious training, beatings by schoolteachers, and the tenderness of women. While in school one day, the teacher's lesson is "Erosion." This lesson sums up the entire film; our time here is a series of momentary flicks and experiences and each of these flicks erodes at our being to form us into who we are. Though Bud is surrounded by lots of people, because of his age, he is basically an observer of everything and everyone around him, and he craves the cinema for his pleasure and release. The films form his world and he compares them to the harsh realities that he actually experiences. Films tell him that there is someone special out there for him, but all he experiences is the intense ostracizing that he feels: he is curious about his older, very handsome brothers; he watches them work and share tender moments with their girlfriends; he spends time alone with his Mam who seems to accept her life, but he observes her longings and sadness. He is trained to view his sinfulness and unworthiness in life through the teachings of the Catholic School. All of this "erodes" at his childhood and his longing for connection with someone becomes sadly unbearable. He has no "special someone" in his life. He essentially is alone in the midst of a world teeming with life. The film concludes with Bud and that "special someone" viewing the sun setting as a men's chorale sings the famous hymn 'The Long Day Closes', and now Bud starts the next chapter in life.
Man is this heavy and yet so intensely and poignantly beautiful. As only Terence Davies can do through little dialog and an endless stream of music of the day and seamless shifting of tableaux-like scenes, brings us the confusing and lonely time of pre-puberty childhood. Again, with the steady hand of cinematographer Michael Coulter, "The Long Day Closes" evokes sad and nostalgic feelings of home and hearth. Anyone , but especially someone who has been raised as essentially "an only child" or has felt the intense loneliness of childhood will be more than moved by this film. It is intensely personal and is open to much interpretation, just as the conflicted feelings of puberty are! Davies gives no conclusive answers to this dilemma; he simply presents things as they are and allows them to be. We are the observers who can take from it what we will. Absolutely stunning and real in all respects. A real work of art.
Movie Review: Cinematic painting.
Summary: 5 Stars
The counter to all the American trash of violence and action films we are flooded with week after week what a relief!!! I love this film I suppose because it remindes me so much of my own life and childhood in the 1950s growing up in America and turning to motion pictures for my friends, since I had so few growing up. I have one close male friend at one time but I lost him after a terrible fight. I turned to film and music and a fantasy world to help me cope with my feelings. I could never really express my feelings only movies allowed me to express them or fantasize about another world. The images and music in the film are like nothing I have seen. This film is a work of art. An expression of a child's inner secret mind through the medium of film. I do not know if this film will stand the test of time but as all so called classics; what is a classic in one era is not in another. I hope this little gem of art stands the test of time. Movie Review: Pretty much unlike anything else.
Summary: 3 Stars
Someone I read somewhere mentioned Hou Hsiao-Hsien in reference to this film, and with good reason. Like many of the films of that fine director, Terence Davies' "The Long Day Closes" revels in unbelievably long takes and scenes that don't so much further a narrative as establish a sense of routine and rhythm. In fact, I'm not convinced I could make out any plot to speak of at all. There's something impressive about this. "The Long Day Closes" is a `coming-of-age film' without any great traumas, without dead bodies, without pre-teen sexual experiences, without domestic abuse, and without any violence enacted on animals. Its just sort of a pleasant portrait. That's a good thing, and sets the film pretty much in a class all its own (though the film's almost five-minute-long unmoving close-up of the pattern of the carpet pretty much sets this film apart from everything else already). But for some reason "The Long Day Closes," which is a real formal wonder, fell flat for me. It wasn't so much the lack of drama, or the lack of narrative focus, but the unfortunate combination of the two. A film like Lynne Ramsey's "Ratcatcher" has a bit more oomph. More than that though, I think "Ratcatcher" just has more to say. The real failing of "The Long Day Closes" is not Davies' formal approach (that's near golden) or narrative style, but the fact the film just doesn't seem to have anything to say and is totally lacking in compelling content. And maybe that's not so terrible a thing, really. Its not ever an unpleasant ride. I wish I'd seen this film on the big screen. I have a hunch I would've liked it more in that setting. But watching this film at home I was impressed but ultimately fairly bored.Movie Review: Moving Pictures
Summary: 5 Stars
It is as though someone breathed life into a painting. This gorgeous film is what Angela's Ashes wanted to be.Movie Review: Memorable Film Making
Summary: 4 Stars
In the same vein as "The Secret Garden", "My life as a Dog", and even "Simon Birch". Excellent story telling and top notch performances with great cinematography. Just wish it was on DVD. Great fun that comes highly reccomended. And best of all, its from England so no subtitles or annoying overdubs!
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