I have, up
to a point, returned to my Film Studies roots. I have, through this method and
that, had the opportunity to take a look back at important films and directors
and watch some really interesting stuff I would not have normally initially
chosen. Life being what it is, this means I am falling behind slightly on the
new releases but oh well. I can’t be everywhere. And they will be released to
DVD soon enough. I am aware that the day I day I will have a list as long as my
arm of films to watch – it is categorically impossible to watch them all – but
I like to try… I mean, what’s the point of life otherwise, right…
And this
week I take a look at one of the most important British female directors
knocking around, Lynne Ramsey. Morvern Caller was not a film I had heard of,
but it was a bit before my immersion in cinema. In any case it seems to have
wiped a fair bit of the slate clean between awards won at Cannes, San Sebastian
and the British Independent Film Awards. Morvern Caller is strong and outspoken
as films go, it doesn’t always make incredibly easy viewing but its honest
description of raw emotion carries you through to the end.
One day around
Christmas, supermarket shelf stocker Morvern Caller comes home to find her
boyfriend, an aspiring writer, has committed suicide. He has a single request
from her as far as earthly matters go and that is to have his newly finished
novel published. Morvern, stunned, obliges, and uses the funds from it in her
quest to come to terms with her own emotions and figure out what her next move
will be now that her life has changed forever.
What I love
about the film is that Morvern’s reactions to this clearly unexpected upheaval
in her life are gloriously illogical. And it is precisely this “lack of logic”
that makes the film so close to real life. All of a sudden everything in
Morvern’s life is different. And yet the world goes on around her, most of the
things she has known all her life, her friends, her job, relatives, they are
all exactly how she left them except – and unbeknown to them – Morvern herself
has literally changed overnight. And now
she has to rediscover how to approach them again. It is during this period of
discovery that she will decide what she needs to do next…
As far as
we can tell Morvern is a pretty average girl. She doesn’t like her job and
lives for the weekend, liking nothing more than getting high/drunk/both with
her best friend Lana. Morvern’s first reactions seem pretty heartless, it would
appear that for her it’s just business as usual. The thing is, both we and
Morvern will quickly discover that this is affecting her a lot more than it
would first seem…
We all have
upheavals, pain, change and surprise developments in our lives. It could be,
like Morvern, a death or something else that causes it but sometimes, one
morning you just wake up and you know you are no longer the same person. The
world around you may very well not understand, or indeed they may not have a
cause to do so. This is especially true when coming to terms with the death of
a loved one, we stare with disbelief at the world – untouched by our loss –
carries on as normal and we wonder how we could ever have been a part of it and
wonder if we can ever join it again… Yet we do. Sometimes we truly will never
be the same again and sometimes the change is a lot subtler than we think it
is…
Intense and
hard to watch at times, Morvern Caller is definitely NOT what you need when you
come back home tired from work and need something to uplift you. You will
sympathise with Morvern, get frustrated with her and want to give her hug ,
sometimes all at once. Or maybe you will feel neither. The film is a truly
extraordinary exploration of human emotion and one thing I can guarantee is
that you will end up feeling something. Something you really do not want to
miss.
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