Not too late at all, I think.
The Long Day Closes
I realize, after watching this Terrance Davies masterpiece, that my early childhood memories all revolve around music.
Watching the opening of the first episode of the Electric Company, "We're gunna turn it on..."
Listening to my father boldly (and out of tune) sing his favorites from 60's musicals, especially "Ooooklahoma where the wind blows free..."
Driving down a long stretch of road while the violins screech and then suddenly stop and Neil Diamond rocks, "I got a song that's on my mind..."
My mother taking me to a neighbor's house, she sits me in a chair, places huge cushioned headphones on my head and I am introduced to Jesus Christ Superstar.
My family sits in our living room in the dark while we listen to Black Water by the Doobie Brothers for the first time and my brother and I have to get up and dance.
Some say that smells trigger memory more than anything else, but for me, and perhaps for Terrance Davies, it is music. In his loose autobiography, music fills almost every scene, whether in the background, the foreground or just a character singing. unprofessionally, but wonderfully. Folk songs, church music, classical music, musicals, Davies childhood is all about the joy of singing. While I wouldn't call the movie a musical, the music so fills the air of the film it is difficult to call it anything else.
But the word I would describe is autobiography. For while music is a constant, it is his early love affair with movies and with the male form that he finds the most obvious joys in, even while bullies and abuse make up the counterpoint. There is no central plot, no narrative arc, exactly, just a number of scenes that seem to fit, joined together. A beautiful collage of a young life, better, in my mind, that the much more cohesive 400 Blows.
4/5
As a postscript, I did try to watch Girl Walk//All Day, but after watching a few segments, it was just dull to me. I get the joy, I get the passion, I just didn't feel it, so I gave up.