Morvern Callar

Woo-hoo.

I'm going to buy it on DVD, I think, so I can loan it to people if nothing else :)

The early scenes in Spain were my favorites.

I listen to almost no electronic music, but I really liked that song(s?).

(sub-question - recommendations/similar artists)

I liked the movie more than I expected (Ratcatcher didn't work for me), but I wish I hadn't read the novel before. The house party was one of my favorite scenes ever.

Going a little broader, can anyone describe the basic style or genre that I should look for re: the Christmas-party music? Acid-house?

Not for a moment could I peel my eyes from the screen. I think I might've loved it, and I'm quite suire it was brilliant; I'm less sure I got it.

My only real complaint is a practical one: I really had to strain and do a lot of rewinding to try and understand what the characters were saying, and often, I still couldn't figure it out. I had this same problem with Ratcatcher. Some subtitles would really be nice since much of the dialogue in the film (though, admittedly, there's not much speaking, period) is borderline unintelliglbe.

i liked it a lot; the horrors of the brit leisure industry in particular.

I don't recall any of those ideas, really. The whole thing seemed pretty monotone when it came to the emotions. Or my emotions. Or something.

I just found the slow-moving series of moments thing to be kind of a gimmicky crutch. It's not a new technique to do a movie like this and it's been done much better in the past, more recently with something like La Vie de Jesus which did a far better job at depicting the monotony of day to day life in a working-class town. Or even something like Gus Van Sant's Gerry which wasn't the best of films either, but it was one that provoked me to get inside one of the two character's heads a little bit more than Morvern Callar's. I just couldn't give a sweet fuck for anything she said or did.

And, as I saw it, the film had very little to do with the "monotony" of day-to-day working-class life - it wasn't about universal or even broad experiences, but about Morvern's. So, yeah, I think the film hinged largely on how much you connected with her, which I did a great deal.

It reminded me of everything I wanted Lost in Translation to be - but Ramsay/Morton didn't try all the little ploys to get you to like Morvern or feel bad for her that Coppola used (and which just annoyed me).

I think I saw this mentioned in a Ratcatcher thread - I wonder if Ramsay can alter her style enough to make a 'normal' narrative film.

this must be your reaction then because I found the whole first hour of the movie almost impossibly sad. When the emotions appear flat it's due to shock, and not because she isn't feeling anything, I think.

I love reviews where I'm not sure the writer has seen the movie in question: "Flashy, pretentious and as impenetrable as Morvern's thick, working-class Scottish accent."

yes, it has much in common with, say, Crossroads!

naked

cutting her own wrists

I'm thinking now that a lot of the pre-Spain scenes (and in Spain, the club scene) reminds me of the suicide in Rules of Attraction. Which is kind of depressing.

Yes, in that sense, this movie did remind me of every other movie that I really didn't enjoy this year.

Ha ha I really liked Rules of Attraction also.

And AKM is dead-on, being more manipulative with emotion would have been awful. A large part of my empathy came from the flatness - which, I think, is a much better signifier of depression and anxiety than tears or acting out.

Watched this last night for, incredibly, the first time. Enjoyed, but not blown away. Must take Ratcatcher out now.

i thought the book was fairly disappointing. haven't seen the film but have the soundtrack on warp. some great tracks - the lee perry and BOC in particular.

I loved the book and thought the film wasn't all that, but I should probably see it again.

Anyway, I was going to ask this last summer when it was really hot (briefly) but I forgot. If anyone has the book to hand, you couldn't post some of the tracklistings of the tapes her dead boyfriend made. There's this one description of her lying in the sun listening to a tape that's really evocative. I'd really like to make some of the tapes into playlists, and I've lost my copy somewhere.

One of the things that disappointed me about the film was that, as I remember, it wasn't actually that faithful to the lists of music in the book, although it's 10 years since I read the book and five since I saw the film, so I may be mistaken. Or perhaps more that the way music worked in the film didn't live up to how I had imagined the music in the book.

Has anyone read the second book, These Demented Lands? It has some great set-pieces (like the techno DJ who has to play nothing but Bob Dylan songs in waltz time), but didn't hang together as well as a whole.

I think you are right about the film not being that close to the lists of music in the book, although as I recently moved I have misplaced the soundtrack album so I can't be sure. I did find the book though and I had quick flick through it and noticed at least three c90 compilations.

When she slices up the body she puts on what she calls 'a suitable compilation'
Side A
Last Exit: Straw Dog/ You Got Me Rockin/ Take Cover/ Ma Rainey/ Crack Butter/ Panzer Be Bop
Miles Davis: Great Expectations
Sonny Sharrock: Dick Dogs

Side B
Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society: Undressing
Luciano Berio: Visage
Miles Davis: Pharaoh's Dance
Ronald Shannon Jackson: Taboo/ Challenge to Manhood
Bill Laswell: Assassin

for the camping weekend in a heatwave
Side A
Salif Keita: Nyanafin
Les Tetes Brulees de Zanzibar: Essingan
This Mortal Coil: Another Day
The Ink Spots: Up a Lazy River
Cocteau Twins: Blue Bell Knoll
Material: Disappearing

Side B
The Can: Future Days
Holger Czukay: Persian Love
The Can offof Ege Bamyasi Okraschoten: Pinch/ Sing Swan Song/ Vitamin C/ Soup/ I'm So Green/ Spoon
(she had a habit of calling them THE CAN in the first bit of the book I recall)

The much later sunbathing tape
Side A
Czukay Wobble Liebezeit: Full Circle
Zawinul: The Harvest
PM Dawn: So on and so on
Can: Pauper's Daughter and I
Scritti Politti: A Little Knowledge
Neville Brothers: With God on Our Side
Robert Calvert: Ejection
Hardware: 500 Years

Side B
Keziah Jones: Free Your Soul
Daniel Lanois: Still Water
Spirit: Topango Windows
John McCormack: Come my Beloved
James Chance: Roving Eye
Hunters and Collectors: Dog
Leisure Process: A Way you will Never Be

Happy compiling!

(I couldn't make much sense of These Demented Lands either btw)

The book is important, and I think impressive. The film, I think, is neither; about as bad as Ratcatcher, or probably even worse; aimless arty movies that drift nowhere and say nothing. General, inherent failing with MC the film: it can't replicate narrative voice, which is the great distinction and innovation of the novel.

Jonathan G, thank you!

the pinefox, you are totally right on the last point. It's also far less funny.

the book and the film are different things, very different in this case. i prefer the film by a small margin. i know it has it's haters. if you like this, you will certainly like ratcatcher, which I can't think of as aimless and arty....but, I know people who like ratcatcher who did not like MC.

And for comparison purposes, the soundtrack:

1. Can: I Want More
2. Aphex Twin: Goon Gumpas
3. Boards Of Canada: Everything You Do Is A Balloon
4. Can: Spoon
5. Stereolab: Blue Milk (edit)
6. The Velvet Underground: I'm Sticking With You
7. Broadcast: You Can Fall
8. Gamelan Drumming
9. Holger Czukay: Cool In The Pool
10. Lee 'Scratch' Perry: Hold Of Death
11. Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra: Some Velvet Morning
12. Ween: Japanese Cowboy
13. Holger Czukay: Fragrance
14. Aphex Twin: Nannou

Nannou was a b-side to Windowlicker, wasn't it?

teh film is amazing. really need to see it again

Hardly fantastic but why was it being compared to Rules of Attraction upthread?
I remember that film being physically embarassing.

i think you really have to be awake to watch this cuz i have to tell you, the accents and camerawork left me in the DUST. had to turn it off. it was almost humorous how much i couldn't pay attention to it. strange

loved this

finally picked up the soundtrack on ebay.

its a classic, but I thought it looked cool back when it was released.

then I got into Can & Kraut in general.

listening to it now, its like they made a soundtrack just for me... and I never got round to buying it.

the guy who wrote Morven Callar, did the notess for the Can DVD.

The soundtrack is missing "Dedicated To The One I Love" :-(

This film is great, my mp3 player sounds so shit after it though.

i guess i need to revisit it. seems worthwhile, but the 1st time, i didn't know it called for such close attention.

It doesn't, it's like a dream. And the music is so good, and sounds way better somehow than if you just listen to those songs. And what was the song playing at the beginning of the house party? That was so so good. I need to continue packing. Moving is hard work.

aww my thoughts are with you!

One of the best soundtracks everr....really well sequenced and intriguing the whole way through.

The film, I think, is neither; about as bad as Ratcatcher, or probably even worse; aimless arty movies that drift nowhere and say nothing. General, inherent failing with MC the film: it can't replicate narrative voice, which is the great distinction and innovation of the novel.

― the pinefox, Friday, 11 April 2008 10:56 (2 years ago)

don't know the novel but in the absence of clear narrative voice it does create an acute picture of someone in a sort of post-traumatic amentia where they don't really know what they're doing, or want to do

that is a bit of a staple of 'aimless arty movies'- lots of them focused on mystified children/confused adolescents/outcasts/autistic savant types whose affectlessness renders them mystifying to the viewer, inviting their projections

i think amateurist had a similar critique elsewhere re eureka and though i think that's a masterpiece it does share those generic elements, like morvern it was inspired by certain music though not with the diegetic conceit

i don't know what i think about this film now. better than ratcatcher. i think when i liked it, i liked just vibing out to it. sweet images + good, early 00s hipster soundtrack. but, on reflection, it really doesn't 'say' anything about what i guess it is about -- bereavement? iirc her b/f dies or kills himself or s.thing and she runs away. he's a writer and she uses the pots of money writers have stashed? or she sells his MS to a publisher? i think lynn ramsey/alvin kuchler have a visual 'voice' tho.

i mean, clearly, this film shits all over any loach or leigh.

it's an impressive film -- sort of gives a lot of art-film clichés a nice gloss without really transcending them.

mike leigh is kind of super-amazing though, when he's at his best.

My Pal's done a spotify playlist with all the music in the book.

details and some background here http://slow-thrills.blogspot.com/2011/03/morvern-callar-music-from-book-many.html

Scrolling down this thread I was just about to start compiling one meself - thanks to your pal!

^ Haha, scrolling down this thread I was just about to compile one on Spotify as well.

Just watched the film for the first time - bloody fantastic the way the soundtrack works within it, especially the reverie inducing 'Dedicated To The One I Love'.

Lynne Ramsay's approach to editing in both this and YWNRH is acute and graceful. Love for example the switch from Kathleen McDermott's character crying and apologising and the look from Morvern which sort of gives away that she's going to forgive her. And then we switch to them running together through the airport for their flights off to Spain.

I'm not saying this film exacts reflects my "Scottish experience" but the two visits to the Grannies felt like scenes from visiting my Granddad in Gorebridge, and the house party scenes evoked Hogmanays and free houses from 16 to 21 years old better than anything else I can remember on film.

The way you guys talk about this movie and its soundtrack makes me wish I didn't have the experiences with it that I have.

I was married at the time I first became aware of this film. My at the time wife was a really big fan. I've alluded to this elsewhere on ilx, but she was a very heavy drinker and was a very aggressive, very angry drunk. It usually escalated into raging, one-sided shouting matches and sometimes even more unpleasant situations. I do not mean this in an insulting or malicious way at all, but I do honestly feel like she had some sort of undiagnosed mental illness. Be it borderline personality disorder, bipolar, or something even more extreme, she was definitely struggling. In any case, I was working mostly evening and night shifts at Tower Records, so I would get home fairly late during the week and very late on the weekends. Nine times out of ten, I would arrive home to the apartment with all of the lights on, this movie blaring out of the stereo, and her just sloppy drunk, wandering around the place, reciting the dialogue and acting along with the film. I would ask if she would turn the stereo off and just have the audio come through the television speakers so I could try to go to bed and that would ignite her agitation. Over time, I started to feel kind of unsafe, as she was getting too fixated on and attached to the story. She would bring the DVD along to family get-togethers and put it on and force anyone who was willing to listen into these bizarre discussions of whether or not it was immoral for Morvern to dispose of the boyfriend's body and take the credit for his novel. She would bait the opposition in by initially siding with them on the stance that Morvern was doing something questionable, if not illegal, and then she would flip on them by arguing that it didn't matter, because Morvern was depressed and living an unfulfilled life with the boyfriend and that, by taking credit for the novel and subsequently coming into a more comfortable financial situation, she was claiming independence — or something, I don't know. It reached a point where I honestly did fear that she was having ideation of killing me and carving me up, so she could become "independent." Luckily, we moved house soon thereafter and the DVD got "lost" in the move and she moved on or forgot about it.

Christ - that's intense, Austin. I hope she is doing better now.

And I mean, everything else aside, there are far far too many breast shots to pull out the DVD at a family gathering. My uncle will point out stiff nipples on TV presenters so I could not imagine sitting through this with him and the rest of the family.

Upthread someone mentioned having the soundtrack but not having seen the film. I can't imagine doing things in that order, is that a common thing? Have any of you guys bought soundtracks without seeing the associated film (especially ones that are just compilations/mixes rather than an artist created work)?

Spawn soundtrack 4 eva

Have any of you guys bought soundtracks without seeing the associated film (especially ones that are just compilations/mixes rather than an artist created work)?

Yes, a lot in the mid-90s. All those movies with hip hop-themed soundtracks. OutKast put out some of their best material in those days —'Benz or Beemer', 'Phobia', 'In Due Time', 'Everlasting'— on soundtracks.

Christ - that's intense, Austin. I hope she is doing better now.

I was very young when I got involved in that relationship (nineteen, to be exact) and I was so hellbent on not floundering through two or three marriages like my parents that I was determined to stick it out and wait for her to "settle down." Needless to say, that didn't happen. Last I knew, about five years after we were divorced, she had been arrested (again) for public intoxication and carrying an open container not too long before I moved to southern California. That was a few years ago. So, sadly, I don't think it ever will happen.