DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES
Directed and Written by Terence Davies
Screen dreams are strangest and strongest when they hit close to home. In Terence Davies' searing memoir of his working-class family in Liverpool 30 and 40 years ago, mystery resides in the vision of his mother, magically poised on the hall sill, washing the outside windows ("Don't fall, Mom. Please don't fall"). Laughter erupts from three colleens parodying a Nat King Cole hit ("They tried to sell us egg foo yung"). The recollected terror of a vicious father can be tempered by his early death. The daughter who vowed, "If I...