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Distant Voices, Still Lives

“In memory, everything happens to music.”

1988 · 1 h 24 min
Directed by Terence Davies
DramaMusical

Cast

Freda Dowie Pete Postlethwaite Angela Walsh

Credits

Written by: Terence Davies

Plot

Scenes from the life of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, shaped by a violent father and unified by songs.

Sinekatalog’s take

Terence Davies's autobiographical memory-piece shows a Liverpool family under a violent father, held together by songs. Poetic, fragmentary and painful, with Pete Postlethwaite fearsome, it is a masterful, haunting portrait.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.4 / 10 (5,818 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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