The Terence Davies Trilogy
A trilogy of short films tell the life of Robert Tucker. "Children" (1976) looks at his birth and formative at an austere boy's school. The bleak environment is not aided by the loveless, violent domestic life he experiences. Nonetheless, his father's death has a major impact on him. In "Madonna and Child" (1980), he is a closeted homosexual working in a grim office and still living at home with his daunting mother. In the final entry, "Death and Transfiguration" (1983), he deals with his mother's death and then faces his own impending doom.
Madonna and Child (1980)
01 November, 1980
A middle-aged British man struggles to reconcile his homosexuality and his Catholic upbringing.
Death and Transfiguration (1983)
22 June, 1983
A British man on his deathbed recalls moments from his life.
Children (1976)
01 November, 1976
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.