FREE ON YOUTUBE Terence Davies - The Long Day Closes

FREE ON YOUTUBE  In the early 90s I rode my bike all over Berlin in search of films by Terence Davies. It goes like this: You stop by Hardy's video store on Brüsseler Strasse and the Video Inn, Kreuzberg. You look in Negativeland at Helmholtzplatz and in Filmgalerie 451, Torstrasse. And if none of the video stores has a Davis VHS in its program, then you go to Mittenwalder Strasse. To the Videodrom. Or you can start your own cinema. Fortunately, life is much easier now! After all, there's the internet and especially lesser-known films like The Long Day Closes like to run freely on YouTube. The very first DVD of Davis' near classic was released on Criterion. Including a beautiful book about the work of Davis. Already during the opening credits you can recognize the theme of the film: a dimly lit flower container withering before our eyes. In addition a minuet by Boccherini. Somehow the cheerful music seems to be indifferent to whether the withered flowers fall to its sounds. Because sounds never age! The Long Day Closes is the best film by Davis and yet forgotten today. Perfectly and with great meticulousness photographed! A film that seems to evaporate before our eyes. Almost like a state of mind. The portrait of a family life, almost free of associations. Can one even speak of narrative cinema anymore? It's about the first gay rebellion or the revulsion of death. But none of this is ever expressed in an obvious way. The Long Day Closes is a cinematic mystery. A work that whispers its message to us and only reaches those who really want to listen. In the center is eleven-year-old Bud (Leigh McCormack), the youngest son of a working class family from Liverpool. It is the 50s. The family often and gladly goes to the cinema. It is a beloved ritual of the family. Bud's brothers will soon marry - as was the custom at the time. Bud loves his mother to death while his father is away. Bud discovers beauty in the bodies of other men. Anyone who has seen Davis' trilogy before will quickly understand Bud is the boy in the trilogy. And then we understand that Bud has just freed himself from his father's abuse. We know that Bud will grow up to be Terence Davies...