Robert Tucker, a young gay man who is almost without affect, sits in various waiting rooms. As he sits, he recalls events from the year of his childhood when his father dies. He's ten or eleven that year, picked on by bullies at the Catholic school he attends. He seems friendless. At home, his mother is quiet, his father is ill and angry. After his father's death, there's a wake, the coffin arrives, the body is removed. The lad grieves, alone.
Direction
Davies' static frames turn waiting rooms into purgatory.
Sound
Pop songs and hymns become weapons of nostalgia.
Editing
Time collapses—past and present bleed into one suffocating moment.
Director
Terence Davies
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Davies made this as the first part of his 'Terence Davies Trilogy,' autobiographical films about his Liverpool Catholic upbringing that took years to complete due to funding struggles.
The adult Robert's affectless demeanor mirrors how Davies himself described his own emotional shutdown after his father's death at age seven.
GB
