When the cat’s away, the mice will play

 With Mrs. Ottawacker and Ottawacker Jr. both out of town, visiting the bright lights of Sundridge, it made sense that I should catch up on some sleep and finish off the work that had been hanging over me of late. Of course, none of that happened. I made it till 7:15 before the bladder needed emptying, and then just as I had considered that Charlie might not need feeding, the phone rang and it was Ottawacker Jr. telling me that he had slept badly (“Momma frightened me with tales of rats”) and how had I slept.
I pointed out that it was not yet 8 o’clock, and then I heard an alternative version of the rat story being shouted from the other side of the Sundridge kitchen (“I said there might be a mouse around”), and so realized (a) they would not have slept very much and (b) I might as well give up all hope of sleep.
 
I did manage to get some work done – although not as much as I had hoped or should have managed. The house seemed empty and neither of the two cats were in their more energetic moods. I tried to catch up on some of the calls I owed people, but other people seem to have lives to lead, so I caught up on some blips, instead.
 
In the evening, I thought I would treat myself to a film that nobody else would like to watch in “our house” and make inroads into the long list of films I need to see before I die. (Not that I intend dying any time soon, but you need some motivation to get off your arse.) I wandered down and searched through the DVDs and my eyes fell on Distant Voices, Still Lives. Now, a few things shocked me about this: one, I had thought, for some reason, that it was a Mike Leigh film; two, I thought it was set in London; three, I thought it was more of a rom-com than anything else. Christ on a bike: talk about being wrong.
 
What I got was a full-blown immersion into the past. Then, I remembered why I hadn’t watched it before, it was all a bit too close to home. It is set in Liverpool – given his background, it is probably Kensington – and features a family living in fear of a psychotic father, brilliantly, BRILLIANTLY played by Pete Postlethwaite. It is as much a musical as a drama. The spoken parts are full of anger and vitriol, violence and/or threats; the silence is the calm before the storm; the music is the escape. The music and the silence. Then the violence.
 
Watching Postlethwaite and his on-screen wife, played by Freda Dowie, there is a feeling of impending terror every time the two come on screen together. There isn’t that much dialogue between them; but what there is is terrifying. And the silence, the silence… Terence Davies has created a brilliant film and, despite its subject matter, it is not necessarily a film without hope. But it is not an easy watch.
 
After that, I needed something more cheerful – so I watched half an hour of Quelle Soirée, which is magnetic.