Now that I've seen Morvern Callar. . .

Well, I agree with you about Morvern Callar,anyway.

*checks dream thread*

Hmmm...claiming that I "needed" your ID -- yet I exist to you only in a virtual society where nobody is anybody. (Or, better yet, everybody is nobody.) Wonder what Freud would say?

what exactly do you mean by non-handling?

Morvern has suffered a terrible tragedy. Though I love how Ramsay tells the story with limited dialog, that doesn't mean she's not responsible for giving us some insight into what Morvern is experiencing. Otherwise, we're just left with pretty pictures.

I mentioned Tsai Ming-Liang before. Here's a director that can speak volumes with about five lines of dialog in an entire feature. Morvern staring out of a taxi window in Spain is, sadly, just that.

It's 2:30 in the morning, I'm sake-drunk, I shouldn't be posting. Night all.

I actually dont think the situation in Ratcatcher is particularly extreme unfortunatley. I think it closely represent Glaswegian childhoods in poor areas in the 70's. Ramsay was in the year above me at school (i have mentioned this before) and was brought up in similar circumstances to me (i was good friends with her sister though not with her). I think the real magic of that film is the inner life that all the characters seem to have and how she put thats across very subtly.

All in all, I liked the idea and the characters, but the directorial voice and style left much to be desired.

Morvern Callar I got very little from.

Last I heard, she's doing The Lovely Bones next, which disappoints me because I hated the book, though it's a coup for her.

I don't care for Tsai Ming-Liang anymore -- not since Vive L'Amour, which was very good, very funny. (Haven't seen Goodbye Dragon Inn, though, and I'd like to.) Please somebody explain what you enjoyed about The River or The Hole!!

I feel exactly the same way. Although it wasn't such a coup, because she signed on before it became a best-seller. Still, I'm crossing my fingers.

Let's look at my favorite TML film What Time is it There?

Early on in the film there's a strange bond that is formed between the watch seller and the girl going to Paris. Of the hundred or so watches he has for sale, she's only interested in the one on his wrist. He doesn't want to sell it to her -- said it's bad luck, given that his father just died. She wants it nonetheless. As a result, she goes to Paris and has a series of bad events. Back in Taiwan, the watch seller has become somewhat obsessed with her. The actions that both are shown 'doing' (for lack of a better word) are at least connected with something previously referred to. We understand why he sits in his room watching The 400 Blows. We also understand why the girl is so uncomfortable in the cafe, why she cries, etc. At the same point, we fully understand the actions of the mother, grieving for her dead husband. All this is done without dialog, and it is a beautiful, moving experience. This is extremely hard to pull-off, and TML is a master at it.

I could certainly apply the same arguments for The Hole, Good-Bye Dragon Inn or films by Wong Kar-Wai, Shinji Aoyama and Hou Hsiao Hsien. But my defense is not limited to Asian directors -- certainly Bela Tarr and Alexsandr Sokurov have mastered it as well.

Ramsay, on the other hand, employs a similar technique, but we're not clued in enough to what Morvern is going through, or to understand the significance of what she does. ***WARNING - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHAED*** Morvern has cut up her boyfriend and (somehow) buried him with the help of only a small hand shovel. (I found that whole sequence somehow ridiculous. A naked Samantha Morton, walkman strapped to body, cutting up the man she loved while listening to The Velvet Underground. Please.) What effect has that had on her? We never know. For a while I thought, is the character meant to be an emotional retard? For such a serious film, we see a woman doing things that would most definitely screw up the minds of most of us, and she's seemingly unaffected. Now, part of me thought -- ah, she's blocking, and all will be let out later -- she'll come to terms. But that never happens. Why Spain? The scene of her in the village in what looks like the running of the bulls -- what was the significance of that? Is her looking down at the crowd from atop the fence in ANY way related to the events so far? Was that actually planned, or did it just occur?

The film is filled with scenes like this -- and as it went on I just got angrier and angrier. What are Morvern's thoughts/feelings about stealing her boyfriend's book and claiming it as her own? What does she want to convey to the publishers? Why buy the dress? What was it all for -- so that she can simply leave her town in Scotland? Why Spain for fucks sake?!?

If Ramsay wanted to make a film about a woman who is SO far gone after the suicide of her boyfriend, fine. Yet at times Morvern seems very much in control, very much aware, so it just doesn't hold together for me. Believe me, I love the 'less-is-more' approach, but that doesn't mean you can just film actors in exotic location giving soulful looks to the camera. That just isn’t enough.

Amateur!st said morvern caller was all mood. Yes, ok, but what mood exactly was that? As much as I loved the soundtrack, what would the film have been without it? Is it fair to say the film is about how a woman copes with the death of her boyfriend by listening to her walkman?

Writing this, I'm thinking about the cutting-up-and-burying sequence. Wouldn't that just fuck you up severely? Would you then so easily have a girlfriend over and jump up and down in your panties while throwing flour all over the kitchen? (In slow motion to a Broadcast song?) God I hate that film more now than I did ten minutes ago.

Somebody...enlighten me.

there are numerous shots of Morvern walking away from us, enclosed in a space that is itself enclosed in the frame; the sort of shots that suggest that the distance between her and us is intentional.

the running of the bulls scene, where is she is separate from the crowd, suggests a certain failure, and whether the final scenes represent success is hard to tell because she is still wearing the headphones, lost in her own world.

but i tended to see Morvern as a figure that is very intentionally distant--not unlike Camus' Stranger. i think it's actually part of the point that we can't understand her.

bugs, graveyard scenes, etc are all signifiers to us that she has crossed over, so to speak, rather than "this is what she is thinking"

The house party scene is one of my favorite pieces of film ever.

If she intended to not give any meaning to Morvern and her actions, then what is the film about/for? I mean, if a film is about (at least ostensibly) a woman discovering her boyfriend's body, shouldn't there be some sort of emotional response?

Morvern reacts, if only for a moment, when she learns that her friend slept with her boyfriend. But that's the end of that. Shouldn't her physical journey have been somewhat spiritual or healing? I just don't get what Ramsay wanted to do with this film, and that annoys me.

Regarding the Camus comparison -- interesting. But even our non-understanding should be rooted in something. Nobody who reads The Stranger walks always saying "huh?" (Well, perhaps some do.) Is Morvern's empty-shell of a character a product of a post-existential post-post-modern society? That I could deal with, if there were something, anything, to guide us towards that.

I'm a screenwriter. (At least I play one on TV.) I don't write straightforward three-act plot-all-there-in-the-first-ten-pages sort of stuff. I actually have a screenplay that is about a young man dealing with the suicide of a girlfriend at a young age. That's not what the film is about, but it clearly has an impact on his relationships over the years. Even though he doesn't confront it, it has an effect on him. If Ramsay had left it at discovery of dead boyfriend, that would be one thing. But my making the choice to show us (graphically) her cutting up and burying him, isn't she then responsible to follow through on that? If not, isn't that just as bad as one of the clichés we all hated on another thread? Is Morvern a well developed character? Do we care at all about/for her? (I don't mean 'like' -- I don't necessarily need to like a character to care for her.)

After both films, I get the impression that she works up these great images in her mind -- like the child in the curtains -- but they don't connect to anything. They just look cool. Perhaps she should be a photographer instead.

Shouldn't her physical journey have been somewhat spiritual or healing?
Why? Maybe Morvern isn't capable of spirituality or healing. Or just not interested. She decides to go to Spain to rave it up and lose herself in a world of physical pleasure. (Then, of course, she finds out that it's unsatisfying.)

Your problem, as I see it, is that you're still looking for Morvern to be a well-rounded, good person - and I don't think she is, nor is she meant to be. And you're looking for answers, but I don't think they're provided because Morvern doesn't find any. It's all kind of teenage existential crisis stuff, but there are no big answers or solutions.

Even if I didn't think the story and acting were eminently justifiable, the mood/images/sound would have been enough though.

Sort of hurrah! My g/f's ex is in this. He's in the car while they're playing Can. 87 degrees of Tom Cruise.

I'm afraid Ramsay is residing in some nether zone. The film is neither fish nor flesh, as the saying goes.

To use an example oft mentioned on this board -- Brakhage -- there are several films of his, wordless, plotless, that EXPRESS so much nonetheless.

Several of us (myself included) mentioned the music, which is a great selection. But I ask again -- if that was taken away, would we be left with anything? If not, isn't then this the manipulation we spoke of in another thread? Maybe I should just consider the film a very well-made music video?

in any case, im not a big fan (philosophically) of films that concern themselves with the "inner lives" of characters. this leads to dubious practices like making the external environment conform to the character's mental state. i much prefer films that show characters interacting with an external "reality".

MC is not a documentary. It's a fiction. Even in the most stripped down format, a fictional film should convey something.

The films of Bela Tarr are mostly about image. But the images are not simply put there because they look good. There's a lengthy sequence in Satantango of two characters walking. The wind picks up, leaves blow all around them. We know very little about them, barely know who they are, certainly don't know what they are thinking, yet in the context of the film as a whole, that scene says a LOT.

I think part of Ramsay's problem is that she wants it both ways. Much of the film is presented as straightforward narrative, but then it drifts off into those interludes of Morvern listening to her walkman....thinking.

Ok then -- I'll bite -- what did the film show us? (Other than Samantha Morton wearing a walkman?)

The film in many ways reminded me of In My Skin. If you look at the two films, you see how In My Skin is ALL about the character. There's the first incident -- she cuts herself at a party. Somehow it excites her. This leads to greater and greater experimentation with self-mutilation. Like Morvern, we don't really understand her motives -- there's nothing outwardly wrong with her, she's got a good job, a loving boyfriend, a decent life. This is what makes her actions all the more horrifying. The not knowing. But unlike Ramsay, that’s a clear choice made by the writer/director.

Yet Morvern is always kept at such a distance. All her actions seem the same. Whether it's picking up a randomly ringing phone at a train station, taking a bath, having sex with a stranger -- what is Ramsay showing us? I don’t mind that Morvern isn’t well-rounded, good, nice, etc. But she has to be something, yeah?

I'm thinking about the scene as she walks through the supermarket in slow-motion while listening to Lee Hazelwood. You know what; the film is just a music video for angst-ridden 20-somethings.

Again, it seems to me you're looking for something out of the film that it never intended to provide.

Why does she have to be "something"?

What does it even mean for her to be "something"?

What does it 'say'? What? Please explain what that says? I liked MC because I related to it; it's possibly using very English references, or specifically refs that mean something to my generation, I dunno. But there's mystique around Tarr and TLM in part because they're 'exotic' to US critics, and are presented in a mystificatory fashion. There's less mystique with this film, it's actually quite earthy.

Anyway, music is central to plenty of well-respected films, cinema is image PLUS sound, image does not predominate OVER sound.

I grant that it was pretty and aurally pleasant, but the plot points felt like heavy-handed intrusions clumsily attempting to manipulate the mood that the visuals and soundtrack work so hard to control. The story felt both implausible and cliche (suicide stories are overdone, vacuous rave scenes trite, first novels winning big advances unconvincing and twee--the stuff of soap operas and high school creative writing classes). As much as I like Samantha Morton and as much as the visuals/music were the best part of the film, their combined effect left me feeling clobbered over the head with art school Alienation in an Amoral universe. I was bored in the first half-hour and was barely able to sit through the rest.

I liked MC because I related to it; it's possibly using very English references, or specifically refs that mean something to my generation, I dunno.

See Enrique, I am English and of this generation, but I find that a lot of Americans relate to the film because of its "otherness". I saw a lot of people and places in this film that do feel familiar and quite possibly specific to one idea of "England" but they are elements of British youth culture that I generally feel uncomfortable with. Maybe I'm just an old fart.

Enrique -- I don't have the time now @ work to get into a whole defense of Bela Tarr. I will say, however, that you are off-track about the appeal of Tarr and TLM - their 'exoticness' does not play into it for me. (For what it's worth, I lived in Hungary for a couple of years, so I am at least familiar with the place.) There is indeed a mystique, but it's not as you claim.

Yes film is, as JLG says, Son+Image, but I hardly think that equates to an image of a woman wearing a walkman.

What Time is it There? twee?!? Jeez Louise! - I've not heard it referred to as that before!

I'm honestly not saying this to be contrarian, but I can imagine a number of ways in which home movies could be quite compelling -- voyeurism, for one.

MC is not a documentary. It's a fiction. Even in the most stripped down format, a fictional film should convey something.

I thought about starting a thread on this, but have you seen Altman's new film, The Company? I'm not sure that it really conveys anything, either, beyond "The work of a dance company sure is hard!" But I thought it was really lovely -- some of the dance numbers were breathtaking; the backstage politics held a certain fascination; and I liked the way Neve Campbell and James Franco's relationship was presented almost entirely through sketches and gestures. It was nice to just watch. And it's essentially a fictional film, despite having elements of documentary (that's the actual Joffrey Ballet rehearsing and performing).

Although I guess that raises the question -- are you implying that it's okay for documentaries to not "convey something"? Why not? And why keep the categories so distinct from each other? Who knows if it's some kind of phony trend (like how every year is The Year of the Woman), but I was heartened by the NY Times article on 2003 films that blended documentary and fiction. I'd love to see more films in that mold.

That was not a film. That was moving pictures and sound.

That pretty much defines a film, though....

this movie was bad, i was disappointed

I liked it.

And if anything it inroduced me to Kolger Czukay's "Cool In The Pool", which is now an all time fave track.