(contains some plot spoilers) Scottish film director Lynne Ramsay's second feature has elements that remind us of the best and worst of European art house cinema. Exquisitely photographed, a tale sensitively and unhurriedly told, and an attitude that gives the audience some credit for seeing beneath the surface rather than being spoon fed the plot, the point, and the feelings of the characters. We also have to wait interminably, trusting to Ramsay that there is going to be some justification for watching such shallow characters living shallow existences for ninety minutes.
For a long while we have kitchen-sink, Mike Leigh type characters - two young women who work as assistants in the local supermarket - set in Oban (for non-Scots - a picturesque town on the west coast - a nice place to retire to but emphatically not the place to Get Ahead in Life.) The only thing that sets them apart is that one of them woke up to find her boyfriend has committed suicide.
There is hardly any dialogue in the first ten minutes. The camera leads up to the moment when Morven, idly caressing her boyfriend's arm as she awakens (probably after a night of drink and drugs), discovers he is dead, but cuts away just before the actual point of discovery. This device is used more than once by Ramsay, forcing the audience to become introspective about the emotional drama that is unfolding off screen. Morven spends several days in denial, not even moving the body. Eventually, after some soul searching, she takes his finished novel which he has left on the computer and inserts her own name for his before sending it off to the publisher. There is a bad goof as she repeatedly presses the 'delete' key on the keyboard to delete the name from the end, whereas a delete key would delete left to right (ie from the beginning).
The next interlude is rather tedious as she sinks into a hedonistic life of drink and drugs with an equally empty-headed girl. The film is visually appealing and the camera handed with consummate skill, but we can't help asking why expend so much art on two such unempathetic characters and a story that, other than for an unusual start, hardly seems worth telling.
The denouement comes only towards the very end of the film. Vicissitudes whilst on holiday in Spain together pull the girls in different directions. Morven tries to find something worthwhile beyond the endless round of sex, laughs and intoxication - at least believing now that something more is possible. Her friend simply says that "it's the same crapness everywhere" and has no hope of getting to a better place, but merely wants to alleviate the badness of the situation she finds herself in. Morven has matured into a more serious person. The book publishers visit her in France and offer her £100,000 for the novel. When she says she is a check-out assistant they assume that she is talking about her next book. Not only through the development of her character, but through the eyes of others, who are believing the best in someone (even if it is on a false premiss), we glimpse that there is a greater individual within the most mundane and hopeless of personalities. This is perhaps only one of a number of possible interpretations, but it is one that made the viewing, at least for me, worthwhile.
Ramsay's film didn't get off to the best of starts at its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Running in three screens on the same night, Ramsay attempted to introduce it in each, which meant that the audience in one auditorium had to wait half an hour with no explanation before the film started. Unusually for a premiere, they filed out afterwards without any applause. Morvern Callar is a respectable movie however and worth the effort it demands.
For a long while we have kitchen-sink, Mike Leigh type characters - two young women who work as assistants in the local supermarket - set in Oban (for non-Scots - a picturesque town on the west coast - a nice place to retire to but emphatically not the place to Get Ahead in Life.) The only thing that sets them apart is that one of them woke up to find her boyfriend has committed suicide.
There is hardly any dialogue in the first ten minutes. The camera leads up to the moment when Morven, idly caressing her boyfriend's arm as she awakens (probably after a night of drink and drugs), discovers he is dead, but cuts away just before the actual point of discovery. This device is used more than once by Ramsay, forcing the audience to become introspective about the emotional drama that is unfolding off screen. Morven spends several days in denial, not even moving the body. Eventually, after some soul searching, she takes his finished novel which he has left on the computer and inserts her own name for his before sending it off to the publisher. There is a bad goof as she repeatedly presses the 'delete' key on the keyboard to delete the name from the end, whereas a delete key would delete left to right (ie from the beginning).
The next interlude is rather tedious as she sinks into a hedonistic life of drink and drugs with an equally empty-headed girl. The film is visually appealing and the camera handed with consummate skill, but we can't help asking why expend so much art on two such unempathetic characters and a story that, other than for an unusual start, hardly seems worth telling.
The denouement comes only towards the very end of the film. Vicissitudes whilst on holiday in Spain together pull the girls in different directions. Morven tries to find something worthwhile beyond the endless round of sex, laughs and intoxication - at least believing now that something more is possible. Her friend simply says that "it's the same crapness everywhere" and has no hope of getting to a better place, but merely wants to alleviate the badness of the situation she finds herself in. Morven has matured into a more serious person. The book publishers visit her in France and offer her £100,000 for the novel. When she says she is a check-out assistant they assume that she is talking about her next book. Not only through the development of her character, but through the eyes of others, who are believing the best in someone (even if it is on a false premiss), we glimpse that there is a greater individual within the most mundane and hopeless of personalities. This is perhaps only one of a number of possible interpretations, but it is one that made the viewing, at least for me, worthwhile.
Ramsay's film didn't get off to the best of starts at its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Running in three screens on the same night, Ramsay attempted to introduce it in each, which meant that the audience in one auditorium had to wait half an hour with no explanation before the film started. Unusually for a premiere, they filed out afterwards without any applause. Morvern Callar is a respectable movie however and worth the effort it demands.