SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Brilliant and touching

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This would have to be categorized as experimental cinema--it's certainly not mainstream. It interweaves stories about three periods in a man's life: as a youth being indoctrinated in religion, as a middle-aged man dealing with the death of his mother, as an old man facing his own death. The filming in stark black-and-white suites the material. Every scene is presented to convince you of what an unhappy life this man has had. The nostrums of Christianity are counter-posed with harsh life realities indicating what director Davies must think of his religious training. The final death scene knocked me on my ass. I questioned myself if I could make it through this short film and, after having done so, I wondered how many suicide attempts were made after viewing it.