RAY & LIZ
RAY & LIZ
Family breakdown, alcoholism and the abyss of depression are depicted in tender colours, refined details and meticulously recreated interiors. The director's autobiographical film is at once dreamlike, aesthetically sophisticated and brutal in its psychological and social diagnosis.
The disintegration of a family and the abyss of depression in tender colours and nuanced detail.RAY & LIZ is the feature film debut of photographer and video artist, Richard Billingham, and a painful autobiographical memoir. The film originated from a 1996 video project and a photo album, Ray's Laugh, dedicated to the director's father.
In the full-length film, the artist returns to the time of his childhood in the 1980s, portraying his home with painful honesty: an unemployed father, an alcoholic, a mother perpetually clinging to a cigarette, a younger brother and a disabled uncle.
The descent into poverty, apathy, and extreme neglect is inevitable, and the emotional deficits are irreparable. Nevertheless, Billingham never sinks into defeatism. RAY & LIZ has moments of relieving extreme tension through humour - the kind that only someone who has experienced the life depicted on screen can afford. The director also shows tenderness towards his parents, even if he has no illusions about their extreme dysfunctionality.
Billingham's film is also a journey back in time - each frame is saturated with details from the era, with meticulous recreations of the small objects, textures, wallpaper patterns, clothing colours, and the play of light and shadow within the cramped interiors. The oneiric, even if bleak, depiction of reality is reminiscent of the mood of the films of Terrence Davis, to whom the artist seems to be referring. RAY & LIZ breaks the heart while dignifying its characters and testifying to the sad, wasted love in the most difficult times.
Karolina Kosińska
