Of Time and the City 2008

Critics score:
95 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The documentary Of Time and the City looks at the pains and pleasures of growing up Roman Catholic and gay in postwar Britain. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Of Time And The City is a caustic, witty, regretful elegy for a place so transformed that it's virtually unrecognizable. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Of Time and the City is a difficult film to describe but a distinct pleasure to experience. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Terence Davies, England's greatest living filmmaker, has released only six features, and this one is his first documentary, a mesmerizing and eloquent essay about his native Liverpool. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Davies has carried out the duty of expansive memoirs. Instead of high-tailing it away from the rigors of reminiscence, he pushes headlong through them. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A short, beautiful, characteristically sublime memory piece by the great British auteur Terence Davies. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film invites a reverie. It inspired thoughts of the transience of life. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: A warm and extremely thoughtful journey, with a deliberately bare-bones narrative. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: [A] mesmerizing, visceral and heartfelt, a lushly rendered assembly of colour and black-and-white archival footage that evokes not only a remembrance of things past, but perhaps as they never were. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: And, by being so personal in a way that's so honest and so incisive, Davies indirectly offers national commentary that's relevant far, far beyond his old Merseyside doorstep Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: Result is by turns moving, droll and charming, and niftily assembled, but not necessarily that profound. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: No nostalgic 'Penny Lane' or 'Strawberry Fields' here. The filmmaker prefers an angrier form of sentimentality. Read more