RAY & LIZ

“Ray & Liz” (United Kingdom, 2018) by Richard Billingham is set in a council flat in the Black Country near Birmingham. Ray, around 1990, lies alone in a room in a tower block, drinking home-brewed beer from plastic bottles and waiting for the neighbour who brings it to him. From there the film jumps back a decade: Ray and his tattooed wife Liz live with their sons Richard and Jason in a flat full of knick-knacks, cigarette smoke and animals. While babysitting, Uncle Lol is tormented with alcohol by a lodger. Years later, young Jason roams the area for days on end, and no one asks after him.

Billingham, who first became known as a photographer with images of his parents, tells his own childhood during the Thatcher years here, shot on 16mm and in a narrow format, with a gaze that neither accuses nor glorifies. The film premiered in competition at Locarno in August 2018. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2018.