Women's Tales IV

 

The Wedding Singer’s Daughter (Haifaa Al-Mansour) is set in 1980s Saudi Arabia as a wedding singer is performing at a wedding until her microphone goes dead prompting her daughter to find out what is going on. Especially as the bride and groom are set to enter the room as the young girl finds out what had happened to save her mother from embarrassment. It is a short that is definitely filled with a lot of charm as well as a sense of innocence as it has a sense of style told by Haifaa Al-Mansour that also has women wearing beautiful clothing in that world of the Middle East.



Shako Mako (Hailey Gates) revolves around a young actress who is working on a movie where she plays a young woman in Arab country whose town is destroyed by a bomb as she ponders the kind of roles she is playing. Even as she is also involved with the casting and such while is eager to break out from the roles she constantly plays as she even does an audition while on location. It is a film with an uneven narrative but it is still an excellent one thanks to a great leading performance from Alia Shawkat.



Brigitte (Lynne Ramsay) is a documentary short film about the photographer Brigitte Lacombe as she is filmed in black-and-white by Lynne Ramsay who captures Lacombe at work. The 30-minute short is among one of the longer shorts in the anthology series as it explore Lacombe’s methods in her photography as well as Ramsay being photographed. Adding to the brilliance of the film is the layered sound design that is a common element of Ramsay’s short films with a lot of these models wearing the Miu Miu clothes as it is one of the top tier shorts of the series.



Nightwalk (Malgorzata Szumowska) is about two different young people in Raffey Cassidy and Filip Rutkowski who play these young people stuck in their respective genders through the clothes they wear. The former is wearing a designer gown while the other is wearing a track suit as they walk out of their homes into the night stripping away the identity they’re forced to be as they become who they want to really be. It is largely a silent film of sorts with music being the dominant soundtrack yet the short does manage to have a great climax as these two young people would meet and embrace who they really are.



In My Room (Mati Diop) has director Mati Diop in her home apartment near Paris during the COVID-19 pandemic as she deals with her ailing grandmother who is living far from Paris as well as being unable to make something outside of her apartment. It is a phenomenal short that has Diop wear Miu Miu dresses and such to deal with her isolation while lip-syncing to opera music as a way to cope with her grandmother’s impending passing and being alone. Diop would serve as the film’s cinematographer where she would also shoot at the world around her including inside where she does mundane things while writing to Miu Miu about her situation as it is definitely one of the best shorts of the series.



Related: Part I - Part II - Part III - Part V

© thevoid99 2023

2021 Cannes Marathon: You Were Never Really Here

 

(Winner of the Best Actor Prize to Joaquin Phoenix and Co-Winner of the Best Screenplay Prize to Lynne Ramsay with Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Killing of a Sacred Deer)

Based on the novel by Jonathan Ames, You Were Never Really Here is the story of a troubled mercenary who is hired by a politician to retrieve his daughter from a human trafficking network that the man has to destroy as he copes with the job and other issues. Written for the screen and directed by Lynne Ramsay, the film is the study of a man whose job is to retrieve missing young girls as he deals with the chaos of his most recent assignment. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts, Ekaterina Samsonov, John Doman, Alex Manette, Dante Pereira-Olson, and Alessandro Nivola. You Were Never Really Here is an intense and haunting film from Lynne Ramsay.

The film revolves around a man whose job is to retrieve young girls and women who have been kidnapped as he is asked by a politician to retrieve his daughter only to uncover a human trafficking network that is bigger than he realizes as he copes with his own trauma relating to his childhood and his time as a soldier. It is a film with a simple premise that plays into a man who takes a job to find and save young women yet this one job ends up being much more troubling than he realizes as it also relates to politics and power. Lynne Ramsay’s screenplay is largely straightforward yet it follows the mind of its protagonist in Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) who does his job in secrecy as he would spend his off-time tending to his aging mother (Judith Roberts).

When he meets his boss John McCleary (John Doman) about an assignment to retrieve the daughter of Senator Albert Votto (Alex Mannette) in Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov). Joe accepts the job yet he remains troubled by his own past as a child (Dante Pereira-Olson) as well as flashbacks as a soldier as it adds to obstacle of his job. Especially as Nina is at the center of this where political power is involved as the film’s second half has Joe deal with what Nina’s father is involved in as trouble ensues. Even as it leads to this trail of blood and anger that Joe would venture into as it play into a dark world that he would encounter yet that world would cross a line that not even Joe would go into.

Ramsay’s direction is definitely riveting for the fact that it aims for something simple but also with elements that are a bit surreal and unsettling. Shot on location in New York City and areas near and at upstate New York as well as interior shots at the Astoria Studios in New York City. Ramsay chooses to avoid many of the city’s many landmarks in favor of going more into areas not often seen as it play into this world that Joe lives in where he lives on the fringes of society. While there are some wide shots that Ramsay uses to establish a few locations and settings in the film, Ramsay chooses to maintain an intimacy on the film as well as create small glimpses of Joe’s own troubled childhood and his time at war. The usage of close-ups and medium shots add to the anguish that Joe endures but also his actions when it comes to dealing with the situation at hand. One aspect that Ramsay does in the film is her approach to violence as much of it is either off-screen or shown from afar with graphic elements are shown in the aftermath of a violent event.

Ramsay also play into this air of intrigue as she often has scenes of Joe wrapping his head around plastic as a way to envision death as it play into his own suicidal thoughts. Ramsay isn’t afraid to play into elements of darkness while she emphasizes on what she doesn’t show as it relates to the world of sex trafficking other than just what needs to be shown. Even as the film leads to the third act where Joe does go hell-bent on uncovering the truth and get some form of justice such as a scene where he confronts a wounded hitman as it is Joe’s humanity that is the most shocking moment in a film that is intensely dark. The film’s climax that involves the main figure of this sex trafficking scandal is intense but on a more emotional approach where Ramsay play into Joe’s own traumas and the sheer chaos of the world he uncovered. Overall, Ramsay crafts a gripping and evocative film about a mercenary who is tasked to recover a politician’s daughter only to uncover the dark world of sex trafficking.

Cinematographer Thomas Townend does brilliant work with the cinematography in its emphasis on natural and low-key lighting while maintaining some stylish lighting for some of the interior scenes at night as it play into the suspense and terror. Editor Joe Bini does amazing work with the editing as its usage of jump-cuts and montages add to some of the drama and suspense while being straightforward in some parts of the film. Production designer Tim Grimes, with set decorator Kendall Anderson and art director Eric Dean, does excellent work with the look of Joe’s home where he lives with his mother, McCleary’s office, and the place where Joe finds Nina. Costume designer Malgosia Turzanska does fantastic work with the costumes as it is largely casual with the exception of the expensive suits that the politicians wear as well as a nightgown that Nina wears.

Special effects makeup designers Tom Denier Jr. and Vincent Schicchi do incredible work with the look of some of the wounds and such into some of the victims that Joe encounters or those he kills as it adds a sense of discomfort to the film. Visual effects supervisor Nick Bennett does nice work with a major visual effects scene in the third act as it play into Joe’s own despair as it relates to setbacks and what he must do. Sound designer Paul Davies does superb work with the sound as it adds to the film’s intense atmosphere in the way natural sounds are presented as well as gunshots are sound from afar as the sound design is a major highlight of the film. The film’s music by Jonny Greenwood is phenomenal with its emphasis on low-key orchestral arrangements to play into the suspense and drama as well as some eerie electronic and rock-based music pieces that help intensify the moments while music supervisors Catherine Grieves and Frederic Junqua cultivate a soundtrack that features other score pieces from other films as well as songs from Colbie Caillat, Albert Hammond, Joyce Heath, Charlene, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Eileen Barton and the New Yorkers as much of the music is played on a location for a scene in the film.

The casting by Billy Hopkins and Ashley Ingram is wonderful as it feature some notable small roles from Scott Price as a wounded hitman that Joe questions and comforts, Kate Easton as a younger version of Joe’s mother, Jonathan Wilde and Ronan Summers in the role of Joe’s father whose face is never seen, Frank Pando as a middleman named Angel who works with McCleary and runs a bodega, Vinicius Damasceno as Angel’s son Moises who had witness Joe return home following a job, Dante Pereira-Olson as the young Joe who witnesses and is a recipient of the abuse from his father, Alex Manette as Senator Albert Votto who hires Joe to get his daughter back as he is hiding something relating to a scandal, and Alessandro Nivola as a powerful politician in a state governor who is key player in this dark world of sex trafficking.

John Doman is excellent as Joe’s boss John McCleary as a man who gives Joe assignments while hoping to retire and offer Joe a chance to live a less troubled life. Judith Roberts is brilliant as Joe’s mother as a woman who has given Joe a reason to live despite her old age as well as being someone who is funny. Ekaterina Samsonov is amazing as Nina Votto as a teenage girl who has ran away and finds herself in the world of prostitution as she is unsure of how she got there while coping with the fact that she is really a pawn in a dark underworld. Finally, there’s Joaquin Phoenix in a magnificent performance as Joe as a mercenary hired to retrieve young women from sex traffickers as he is someone coping with trauma from his childhood and time as a soldier where Phoenix provides a restrained performance as someone who keeps to himself as is also a performance of terror and anguish where Phoenix creates a career-defining performance.

You Were Never Really Here is an outstanding film from Lynne Ramsay that features a great leading performance from Joaquin Phoenix. Along with its supporting cast, rapturous visuals, a gripping script, and an eerie music score from Jonny Greenwood. The film is definitely a haunting character study that explores a man coping with the past while trying to save a young girl from a dark underworld that proves to be bigger than he thought. In the end, You Were Never Really Here is a magnificent film from Lynne Ramsay.

Lynne Ramsay Films: Ratcatcher - Morvern Callar - We Need to Talk About Kevin

Related: The Auteurs #6: Lynne Ramsay - Favorite Films #9: Morvern Callar

© thevoid99 2021

Favorite Films #9: Morvern Callar

This is Dedicated to the One I Love…

A woman finds her boyfriend dead as she lies next to his body as Christmas lights start blinking around. Yet, the camera is more interested in this woman rather than this man who is now dead. Who is Morvern Callar and why does she decide to go on this adventure where she takes her boyfriend’s manuscript under her name? That is what Lynne Ramsay is trying to figure out in her second feature film based on Alan Warner’s 1995 novel called Morvern Callar. While it’s a film that could be about a woman’s grief taking her in this long-lost adventure with no sense of direction. It’s also a film where Ramsay follows this extraordinary woman who is trying to find herself through loss as she tries to figure out who she is.

Death is nothing new to the works of Lynne Ramsay where by the early 2000s, she was already becoming one of the most unique filmmakers of her generation. She began her career in the mid-1990s with a trio of shorts that each explored different ideas of loss that often centered around children in shorts like Small Deaths and Gasman. Those two shorts would play part into Ramsay’s first feature film in 1999’s Ratcatcher that followed a boy dealing with the death of another boy that he feels responsible for set in early 1970s Scotland. The film would reveal Ramsay’s talents as a filmmaker for finding beauty in something as ugly as a garbage strike set in 1973 Scotland where everything looked dreary.

If the trio of shorts and Ratcatcher were films that showed what Ramsay was able to do with exploring the idea of loss. Morvern Callar would up the ante even further in Ramsay’s fascination with death by following this young woman who is probably more lost in her grief than James Gillespie in Ratcatcher. Largely because the film opens with Morvern finding her boyfriend (who is also named James Gillespie) dead on the floor from a suicide as she has no idea how to cope with this or the instructions he’s given her in his suicide note. What she does is go to the train station to process the news, answer a phone call, and then return home to open her Christmas presents in the form of a leather jacket, a lighter, a cassette mix-tape, and cassette walkman.

Driving the film to help Ramsay explore this character’s grief is Samantha Morton who plays the titular character. Prior to this film, Morton was just an actress on the rise who had gained international attention for her work as a mute in Woody Allen’s 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown. The performance would give her an Oscar nomination as she was appearing in numerous project ranging from indies like Alison Maclean’s Jesus’ Son, art house fare like Jim Sheridan’s family drama In America, and big mainstream blockbusters for Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report with Tom Cruise.

While those films and the other projects she would do following Morvern Callar would confirm Morton as one of the best actresses of the 2000s. Her performance as Morvern Callar is the film that would finally confirm Morton as an actress who is willing to go far into playing characters most actresses wouldn’t play. There’s a risk to playing a character who is seemingly unlikable for her actions but also for the way she tries to channel her grief through doing things that brings more questions than answers to an audience. Especially a character who is quite aloof in her actions and why she seems to be running away from the fact that her boyfriend just killed himself.

Ramsay and co-screenwriter Liana Dognini chose to create a film where if one was to create a conventional story about grief. There would be a lot of melodramatic plot devices where the protagonist would cry a lot and such. Do things that seems over the top and give out answers. That is not what Ramsay does where if she and Dognini (who died in the mid-2000s) were able to create Ramsay’s version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones if it wasn’t for Steven Spielberg to be involved for Peter Jackson to make his 2008 film version of the film that turned out to be absolute dog shit.

Instead, Ramsay and Dognini create a script where it’s not about plot devices but rather a character who could be in a state of grief and has no idea what she’s doing as she’s just this ordinary woman who works at a supermarket. She goes out to parties with her best friend Lanna, played wonderfully by then-newcomer Kathleen McDermott, who would join her on this trip to Spain where things eventually go crazy. Though Lanna might not be as developed as Morvern as a character as all she likes to do is go out and have fun. She is the one person who is trying to understand what is up with Morvern who remains lost through all of these parties and things that is happening around her.

Ramsay refuses to give answers into why Morvern is acting this way because even Morvern herself is clueless to her actions. She is probably processing everything she is dealing with while unsure about what to do. Even as she has to work at the supermarket with Lanna and then do things that a lot of people do while there’s also time to go out to a pub, have some beers, go to a club, and party. For Morvern, it doesn’t seem enough as she is still trying to sort things out where she would eventually rid of her boyfriend by cutting up his dead body and bury it somewhere in a field as if she was to erase him for good.

Still, it wouldn’t be enough as she would delve into her uncontrolled behavior where she is lost as guiding her in this lost journey is the mix-tape her boyfriend made. Compiled by Maggie Bazin and Andrew Cannon, the soundtrack is a wide mix of music ranging from country, ambient, dub reggae, alternative rock, post-rock, and pop that plays up to Morvern’s dizzying state of mind. Whether’s it’s the use of music by Can and Aphex Twin at the New Year’s party scene to capture the craziness of the party where Morvern would flash a passing sea merchant or the off-kilter insanity of scenes of Almeria, Spain with all of this percussion-driven music that is part of the rave culture. 

One notable moment of Ramsay’s brilliance in mixing offbeat music in a gruesome scene is where a half-naked Morvern chops up her boyfriend’s body with an outtake of the Velvet Underground’s I’m Sticking With You playing in the background as she’s listening to the song. One of the film’s most memorable moments is where Ramsay’s camera slowly plays to the rhythm of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s Some Velvet Morning as Morvern is listening to the song as she walks around the supermarket.

It is among one of Ramsay’s gifts as a filmmaker for the way she can meld music with images in a very understated fashion. Not a lot needed to be told in a scene like that as the music also doesn’t have to say anything. It’s that kind of unconventional approach to storytelling that makes Ramsay so revered by many as she was considered one of the 40 best working filmmakers by the Guardian in 2007. Yet, it would be four more years where Ramsay would ultimately return with her chilling adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin that was hailed as a comeback. 

 If there’s one contemporary filmmaker Ramsay seems to have similarities with in terms of minimalist filmmaking, writing unconventional stories, create entrancing images, and can use music to capture the mood of a scene. It would in American filmmaker Sofia Coppola. Though both come from very different backgrounds as well as the fact that Coppola is a third-generation filmmaker. Coppola and Ramsay seem to have the same idea about how to tell a story through images rather than lots of dialogue or any kind of exposition that sets them apart from other filmmakers including more well-known Hollywood female filmmakers like a Nora Ephron or a Nancy Meyers. 

What sets Ramsay apart from Coppola and her other female contemporaries is that she is willing to go the extra mile to explore death at its ugliest form and is not afraid to make the images seem un-pretty thanks in part to the grimy camera work of her cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler. Another attribute of what would Ramsay apart from other female contemporaries of her time are the cinematic influences she has like Britain’s Ken Loach where both seem to aim for realism in their work. The kind of work Ramsay would do in her first two films and shorts would pave the way for new filmmakers to arrive like Britain’s Andrea Arnold who definitely shares some of the realism that Ramsay and Loach provided.

Morvern Callar however, is more of a surrealistic film due to its story as Ramsay would up the ante in the film’s second half where Morvern and Lanna travel to Spain for more fun where it’s followed by these dizzying scenes of parties. One of which has Morvern having sex with a guy she doesn’t know and then comes this very colorful yet chaotic scene partying with people in a small Spanish village near Almeria. Through Lucia Zuchetti’s frenetic editing, Ramsay would create a moment that acts as a catalyst for Morvern’s growing sense of isolation where she would part with Lanna in the middle of the desert and meet the publisher who wants the book that her boyfriend wrote but under her name.

What would happen is Morvern facing an uncertain future where she is going to receive the deal of a lifetime but is still haunted by the specter of death. Death looms all over Morvern as Ramsay creates startling images that are beautiful in its ugliness. Images such as a rotting vegetable, ants and worms on a ground, a ceremony with skeletons that Morvern and Lanna encounter, and walking into a huge cemetery in the middle of Spain. The film ends with an earlier scene in Spain where Morvern is in the middle of a club where hundreds of people are dancing to break-beating techno music. Morvern however, isn’t listening to that as she is listening to a different piece of music on her headphones.

It’s a moment in the film where Morvern is breaking away from everyone and everything she had known. She receives a very hefty check for the book that’s to be published as she decides to leave for good taking a bunch of records and things into a suitcase and leaves everything behind. Even her best friend Lanna whom she offers a chance to go away again but Lanna however, is content at where she is leaving Morvern all alone.

For Ramsay to end the film like that is true to all fates for those who don’t have a sense of direction. Where will Morvern go in the end? Will she write a book about everything she just experienced or just wander her way around everything else that’s happened to her? That doesn’t matter as Ramsay and Samantha Morton allow Morvern to just be who she is now matter how fucked up she is at the moment.

While Lynne Ramsay would finally set her place as one of the world’s best filmmakers with We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2011, it would be Morvern Callar that would set the course of where Ramsay was headed. It’s a film that isn’t like anything that’s out there as it is a story of a woman that is lost in her grief and the actions that she causes in her journey into the unknown. It’s also a film where it delves into the unknown where it defies convention by just letting the camera go to see what will happen. Even if it’s for something that is unsettling and strange. Only a filmmaker like Lynne Ramsay could make something as daring and uncompromising in a film like Morvern Callar.

Morvern Callar

© thevoid99 2012

The Auteurs #6: Lynne Ramsay

Of the filmmakers to emerge in the late 1990s in Britain, Lynne Ramsay is probably one of the most original and provocative filmmakers of her generation. From 1996 to 2002, Ramsay had already made three short films and two feature films that garnered lots of acclaim and accolades. After that, not much happened following plans to develop Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones that fell apart once the involvement of New Zealand blockbuster filmmaker Peter Jackson got involved. This would lead to a nine-year break between films as the interest towards Ramsay grew in the intervening years where she has finally returned in 2011 with her third feature film in We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland on December 5, 1969, Lynne Ramsay was just an artist with an interest in film where she graduated at the National Film and Television School in 1995. During her years in film school, she was learning to be a camera operator as it grew more into her wanting to take control of her own work. The training she would receive would lead to a trio of acclaimed short films that would help bring buzz to an emerging artist.

Small Deaths/Kill the Day/Gasman

Ramsay’s career would begin with a trio of award-winning shorts that would reveal the themes that Ramsay would explore throughout her career. While short films often be the starting point for emerging directors to hone their craft. Ramsay’s shorts would show a vision that was unique and felt very new to the world of cinema. Particularly for the way children are portrayed as well as its themes pertaining to death and loss.

Ramsay’s first short Small Deaths is about three different characters named Anne Marie in three different stories each relating to some encounter with loss. One about a girl having to see her dad leave for work unsure if he’s coming back while another involve two young sisters at a cow field where they see a cow die. The third involves a woman being the victim of a sick prank involving a heroin overdose. The short display an example of what Ramsay would do as a director in the way she portrays different themes as well as a style that was engaging and playful as the 1995 short won Ramsay the Jury Prize short at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.

Kill the Day is about a drug addict’s struggle to stay clean shows a much looser style in the way Ramsay tells the film in terms of its narrative and directing style. The short would feature an array of editing styles and visual cues that Ramsay would hone in the years to come as she gained key collaborators in editor Lucia Zuchetti, cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler, and set designer Jane Morton for this period. The short also showed how Ramsay can take a grim subject like drug addiction and loss by finding some form of beauty into the storytelling in the way she used flashbacks for the addict character as he reflects on his childhood. The short would win Ramsay another Jury Prize short at the 1997 Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival.

Ramsay’s third short Gasman would be the culmination of her previous shorts as it told the story of two siblings going to a Christmas party with their father where they meet two other kids who is revealed to be their half-siblings. Presented in a visual style that is almost like a home movie and shown from the perspective of a young girl. There is also a tone of the film that is much looser as the actors seem to improvise in the short in the way Ramsay chooses to direct her actors. The short would have Ramsay return to Cannes in 1998 where she would another short film Jury Prize as well as a BAFTA Scotland award for Best Short.

The three shorts would help create buzz for Ramsay as she was approached by studios in Britain to create a feature. Notably as she had gained support from those that had seen and praised her shorts with many wondering what she would do with a feature film. In the years since, her shorts would play to her status as one of Britain’s top directors as they’re continually seen by film buffs.

Ratcatcher

With the goodwill she’s gained from her shorts, Ramsay was asked by studios to create a treatment for a feature film that would eventually become her first feature film about a young boy dealing with guilt in 1973 Glasgow during a garbage strike. Entitled Ratcatcher, the film would mark the start of one of the most promising careers from a new filmmaker.

With her collaborators, Ramsay chose to create a film filled with unknowns which included Tommy Flanagan from Kill the Day as the father and Ramsay’s daughter Lynne Jr. as the daughter. For the role of the film’s protagonist James, Ramsay chose William Eadie in the part as he plays this boy whose innocence is shattered by the death of a friend during a playful fight that wasn’t violent at all. In this approach to the story, Ramsay chooses to follow this boy as he befriends an older girl whom he starts to discover the world of sex in a very innocent manner.

Since the film is also a period piece set in 1973 Glasgow during a garbage strike, Ramsay finds beauty amidst this very grimy world of trash and rats that surrounds the location as if the place seems hellish but the people living there seems quite content about it. Ramsay’s direction is quite stylish for the way the drama plays out that includes some very tender moments involving James’ parents where they dance to Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s Somethin’ Stupid which would show Ramsay’s gift for her use of music in film.

Another key moment of that use in music is a very playful, fantasy scene of a mouse being tied to a balloon as it goes way up in the air to the moon to the tune of Carl Orff’s Gassenhauser that is known largely for being the musical theme from Terrence Malick’s 1973 debut film Badlands. In an interview for the film’s DVD, Ramsay admit that she just wanted to use the piece though people told her that she shouldn’t do it because it’s already done in a famous film. Yet, it’s part of Ramsay’s genius for the way she can use something that is already known but make it fresh as the film itself does have a very Malickian influence in scenes where James is running around a wheat field. This mixture of dream-like beauty in a decayed setting filled with trash gives Ratcatcher a tone that seems very unique that isn’t seen much from any director that is just starting out.

The film made its premiere at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival in its Un Certain Regard section to great acclaim while opening the Edinburgh International Film Festival that year. Despite a very limited release in the U.K. and U.S., the film would give Ramsay numerous accolades from numerous critics and festival prizes. For Lynne Ramsay, the acclaim she had received from her shorts and in Ratcatcher was just the beginning of her flourishing career.

Morvern Callar

Ramsay’s sophomore feature would be an adaptation of Alan Warner’s 1995 novel Morvern Callar about a woman who finds her boyfriend dead of a suicide as she takes his finished manuscript and puts her name on it while going on a trip to Ibiza with a friend. The film would be a turning point for Ramsay as she employed a much looser style of storytelling as she collaborated with Liana Dogini to co-write the script. The film also marked a departure for Ramsay as she chose to have someone famous to play the titular character rather than an unknown as Samantha Morton was cast to play the part.

With newcomer Kathleen McDermott in the supporting role of Morvern’s friend Lanna, Ramsay chooses to go for a more grittier and free-flowing style in terms of its look and flow than in the more dream-like tone of Ratcatcher. Notably the scene of a New Year’s Eve party where Alwin H. Kuchler’s photography has a grainy yet vibrant look to it that is heightened with more colored palettes in the Ibiza scenes. Still, there is a sense of controlled camera work and direction such as the way the camera follows Morvern as she walks towards it at a supermarket to the tune of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s Some Velvet Morning.

Since the film, like Ratcatcher, is an exploration on death and guilt along with the actions and choices the protagonists make. Unlike Ratcatcher, which explored a boy’s confusion over the role he played in accidentally killing a boy. The choices of Morvern Callar are much more ambiguous into the way she reacts to her boyfriend’s suicide and the decisions she made regarding his unpublished book that he just finished. What is more compelling throughout the film is the fact that Ramsay chooses not to judge Morvern for what she does such as chopping her boyfriend’s body and burying it somewhere while taking whatever money he had to go on a trip to Ibiza with Lanna.

The trip to Ibiza and other towns in Spain would eventually become a turning point for Morvern in the way she’s reacting to grief along with an overwhelming offer that she has received for the book that she claims to have written. The looseness of the film becomes more prevalent as there’s less dialogue that appears where Ramsay is clearly experimenting more with long scenes that don’t involve music nor any kind of sound. There is a dream-like quality to some of those scenes while Lucia Zuchetti’s editing creates crazy montages for the surreal moments in the Ibiza scenes that play up to Morvern’s sense of grief that she’s dealing with.

One of the key elements that makes the film so engaging to watch is Samantha Morton’s performance. Unlike the naturalness of the non-actors that Ramsay was able to capture in her previous work, Morton adds a dynamic that is very entrancing to the way she portrays this woman’s grief. Since a lot of the performance is mostly silent, it allows both Ramsay and Morton to explore a character in her grief as she continues to lose herself through everything she does. The film’s ending which has Morvern in a club where everyone else is dancing while she has her earphones listening to the Mamas and the Papas’ Dedicated to the One I Love as she is moving in slow motion is truly one of the most gorgeous shots ever presented in film.

The film premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival where it would win two prizes while the film would also receive a British Independent Film Best Actress prize to Samantha Morton and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actress prize to Kathleen McDermott. Despite having a limited release, the film increased Ramsay’s reputation as she was becoming one of Britain’s finest directors as her cult started to grow worldwide. By this point, Ramsay seemed to be on the verge of bigger things to come but it eventually led to a nine-year break between feature films.

AMBER commercial/The Doves-Black & White Town music video

The clout that Lynne Ramsay received for her two films gave her the chance to adapt one of the top bestselling novels at the time in Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. The story of a young girl’s murder as the girl tries to help her mourning family to try and catch her killer. The story definitely fit in with Ramsay’s theme on death as she and her Morvern Callar co-screenwriter Liana Dogini began to write the project in 2002 though Ramsay’s involvement began in 2001 just before the novel had come out when studios discovered its unpublished manuscript. With filming set to happen in the summer of 2003, it all came crashing down when Dreamworks Studio and Steven Spielberg expressed interest in doing an adaptation on Sebold’s book.

Ramsay was forced out of the project as it eventually became a 2009 film directed by Peter Jackson of the Lord of the Rings trilogy films. The film eventually received lukewarm reviews as Ramsay expressed her views on Jackson’s film in a 2011 interview where she thought Jackson’s film wasn’t very good. During that period Ramsay was working on The Lovely Bones, she directed a commercial that starred Samantha Morton for the AMBER unplanned pregnancy counseling. The commercial had an entrancing style that followed Morton as a woman in peril which indicated the sadness of unplanned pregnancy without any kind of social motives and such.

Another project Ramsay in the aftermath of The Lovely Bones failure was a music video for the British band Doves and their song Black & White Town which returned Ramsay to the world of children that she explored in Ratcatcher. While the original video was re-edited by the band’s label without her consent, the original version was able to be seen at the website for the Academy British film group that reflects Ramsay’s own vision.

While these projects were stop-gap releases for the filmmaker, the long absence would only increase her cult where in 2007, the British publication The Guardian named Ramsay as one of the world’s 40 best filmmakers at number 12. Despite that accolade, many wondered if Ramsay would ever return with a new film.

We Need to Talk about Kevin

Following the fallout of The Lovely Bones, Ramsay got involved in the adaptation of another book in Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. Shriver’s novel was about a woman reflecting on her life as a mother to a boy who would end up killing students in his school. With help from American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh as an executive producer, Ramsay chose to take part in the film in 2006 through its development and financial struggles took the process much longer to do. Once actress Tilda Swinton came on board to star and help produce the film in 2009, production was able to gain ground for a 2010 shoot.

In Ramsay’s approach to telling the story of a woman, who is the unreliable narrator, dealing with the guilt of her son’s action. Ramsay chooses to create a narrative that shifts back and forth to emphasize this woman’s recollection of her life with her child while struggling to maintain a normal life. In this approach to the narrative, Ramsay brings an ambiguity to this exploration of guilt as she offers to ask more questions rather than gives answers in the film. Notably towards the end as Tilda Swinton’s Eva asks her soon to be incarcerated son Kevin (Ezra Miller) about why did he do what he did. Kevin’s response is one of confusion and sadness considering the troubled and complex relationship between mother and son.

Ramsay’s style is still evident in the tricks she had done with her previous films but there’s something different to her approach with this film. Her use of music such as blues and country play to the emotions of what Eva is feeling while there’s also something very unsettling in the way she uses Buddy Holly’s Everyday to a scene of Eva driving at night to a street where it’s Halloween and kids are trick-or-treating. Another moment in the film that happens early is when the film flashes back to a period in Eva’s pre-Kevin life where she’s at the La Tomatina festival in Spain where this mix of squished tomatoes presented in slow-motion as Eva is carried by thousands of people. What the scene doesn’t show is that sense of excitement due to the sound which is playing something that is far more horrifying over the chaos over what Kevin does.

Ramsay’s direction is also different for the way she presents suburban family life as it’s the first film of hers not to be set in the U.K. While most films of American suburbia has this mix of outer beauty with something inside that is very dark. Ramsay doesn’t go for that because the home that Eva lives in for its present sequence is a mess in and out as she is ostracized by people. At one point, there’s a scene where she’s in a supermarket as she hides from a shooting victim’s mother and when she’s to check out. Her eggs had already been smashed yet she still takes it so she can evade more trouble from this woman that really wants to kill her. It’s Ramsay’s emphasizing Eva’s own alienation as she is lost in her own hell while having to take the guilt for being responsible in having a son that is a psychopath.

The film finally premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim as it signified Ramsay’s return following her long, nine-year hiatus from the big screen. The film would also receive acclaim from critics in Britain and the U.S. as Ramsay’s name was becoming more prominent than ever.

Despite having a short filmography of three shorts and three feature films from 1996 to 2011, Lynne Ramsay has managed to create something that a lot of filmmakers would love to have. With her long-awaited return finally yielding another great film in We Need to Talk About Kevin, the question is what will she do next? Plus, will she make fans wait another nine years? Only time will tell yet the material she’s already made so far has made her a filmmaker that film buffs will definitely want to keep looking out for. Particularly with female filmmakers that can bring something different to the table as Lynne Ramsay is one of those group of women who are the best at what they do in the art of making films.

© thevoid99 2011

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Based on the novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin is the story of a woman reflecting on her life as a mother to a son that has killed a bunch of kids in school. Directed by Lynne Ramsay and adapted to script by Ramsay and Rory Stewart Kinnear, the film explores a woman’s relationship with her son and how she feels responsible for what had happened. Starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ashley Gerasimovich, and Ezra Miller. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a harrowing yet hypnotic drama from Lynne Ramsay.

Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) meets a man named Franklin (John C. Reilly) as the two get married and have a child name Kevin (Rocky Duer). However, motherhood doesn’t become exciting as she has to endure Kevin’s cries and wails where by the time he’s six (Jasper Newell). He still wears a diaper and refuses to talk as Franklin is convinced he’s just a good kid still taking his time as Eva remains unsure why he’s so hostile towards her. After the arrival of a new young sibling in Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich), Kevin becomes more hostile towards his mother as he becomes a gifted archer in his teens (Ezra Miller). Eva struggles to bond with Kevin as his behavior darkens when a series of small incidents happen leading to a school massacre. For Eva, she wonders about what did she do for all of this to happen.

What happens when a mother learns that the child she’s given birth to would become a total psychopath? That’s what the film asks as it’s all about a mother trying to understand what role did she play into raising her son and why he did what he did. Yet, the film is told via flashback as this woman is struggling to return to a normal life as she still has to endure the ire of families whose children had been killed by her. She also has to visit her son who is about to go to prison after being in juvenile hall for a few years as she wonders why did he do it? The results are much more ambiguous that leaves more questions than answers while if there are any answers. It wouldn’t really do anything but raise more questions.

Lynne Ramsay and co-screenwriter Rory Stewart Kinnear create a story where the narrative shifts back and forth in a somewhat non-linear manner as it’s based on Eva’s memory of her life and how it all fell apart. Eva is a very interesting woman for the way she started off as this travel agent who later becomes an author. When she becomes pregnant with Kevin, she is not sure what to think of it as she reacts quite detached to Kevin’s arrival which may be a cause for Kevin’s hostility towards her. Still, that doesn’t give enough ideas about why Kevin is the way he is as Ramsay and Kinnear continue to remain ambiguous about his persona as it’s all focused on the mother.

Then there’s Franklin who isn’t as developed as Eva nor Kevin yet he is just as interesting for the way he reacts to what is happening though he is sort of a clueless character. Still, he’s someone whom Kevin seems to warm up to while his presence seems to bring a sense of peacefulness to what is happening despite Kevin’s dark persona. The script’s approach to characterization and unconventional plotting makes it very entrancing to the way the story is told. Notably as it doesn’t try to use any kind of exposition or wanting to give any explanations for the actions that the characters do as it’s a script that is smart and complex for its theme on guilt.

Ramsay’s direction is truly startling in the way she chooses to present the film as it starts off with this lingering image of a sliding door opened and then cuts to a slow-motion scene of La Tomatina in Spain. While this scene shows what Eva’s life is like at the time, it is mixed with unsettling sounds of noise and dialogue that seems to be in a very different place. There is a lot of style to the way Ramsay chooses to present her film while her framing and directing the actors in a scene is very engaging. While there are still some hand-held shots in the film, there’s a lot more steady shots and emphasis to have the camera move on dolly tracks to soak in the environment Eva and Kevin live in.

Since the film is shot largely in Stamford, Connecticut, there is a look that is American but also has a European feel to it in terms of the way Ramsay chooses to tell the story. Since the film has a narrative that shifts back and forth from past to present, it allows Ramsay to create montages of Eva’s memory in parallel to what she’s dealing with in the present. One of Ramsay’s gifts as a director is creating a mood of what is happening from the musical choices she uses to create something that seems off-kilter but also plays up to the dark ambiguity. There’s also a lot of dark humor for the way Kevin does things to Eva to make the film not seem as dramatic as it’s intended. The overall work Ramsay does with this film is astonishing as she truly creates a chilling film about a mother’s guilt.

Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey does a brilliant job with the cinematography from the very colorful yet lush look of the daytime scenes at the suburban home that Eva and her family lives in to more stylish yet entrancing look of some of the nighttime scenes when Eva is driving in her car. Editor Joe Bini does a fantastic job with the editing in utilizing jump-cuts for some stylistic moments in the film as well as montages to create scenes of Eva’s recollection of what she is thinking about.

Production designer Judy Becker, along with set decorator Heather Loeffler and art director Charles Kulsziski, does excellent work with the set pieces creating including the rooms of the big house Eva and her family lives to play up their own personalities while Kevin‘s room is very sparse and cold. Costume designer Catherine George does a wonderful job with costumes from the long dresses that Eva wears in the past to more business-like clothing later in the film to emphasize her mood. Sound designer Paul Davies does a spectacular job with the sound design to create texture and moods that surrounds the film that are often intimate and sparse while also be unsettling at times due to Eva’s own recollections of what she is going through.

The film’s score by Jonny Greenwood is amazing for the mood he creates in the music that ranges from ambient pieces to chaotic orchestral material that includes these brooding harp melodies that just heightens the dark mood of the film. The film’s soundtrack is wide mix of music playing up to its differing moods from country and blues-driven music pieces by Lonnie Donegan and Washington Phillips to rock and pop music from acts like Buddy Holly, the Beach Boys, and Wham!. Other cuts include pieces by co-screenwriter Rory Stewart Kinnear, Helena Gough, Matt Fletcher, Jana Winderen, Sean Hargreaves, and Liu Fang that range from classical to ambient music as the overall music in the film is superb.

The casting by Billy Hopkins is terrific for the ensemble that is assembled as it includes small but notable performances from Siobhan Fallon-Hogan as Eva’s travel agency boss and Alex Manette as a co-worker named Colin. Ashley Gerasimovich is very good as Kevin’s little sister Celia while John C. Reilly is wonderful as Kevin’s father Franklin who tries to understand Eva’s behavior while being unaware of Kevin’s dark behavior. For the roles of Kevin, there’s Rocky Duer as the baby Kevin while Jasper Newell is great as the 6-8 year old Kevin who spouts out curse words and do all sorts of bad things bringing a bit of dark humor to the film.

Ezra Miller is brilliant in a brooding yet enthralling performance as Kevin from the way he just glares at everyone to how he can pull a façade where he makes his dad believe he’s a good kid. Miller’s performance is very complex to what he does for Kevin as there’s a kid who is very smart but also determined to play mind games as it’s remarkable work for the young actor. Finally, there’s Tilda Swinton in a magnificent performance as Eva. Swinton’s performance is truly mesmerizing as a woman trying to connect with her son while trying to find understand what role she played in doing what he did. It’s a very tricky role where someone could go overboard but the sense of restraint and humility Swinton brings is very masterful for what is needed as it’s Swinton at her best.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a tremendous yet very dark film from Lynne Ramsay featuring top-notch performances from Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. While it’s a film that will frustrate viewers who want answers or some kind of conventional story. It’s unconventional approach to storytelling and hypnotic direction does give the film a very slight edge into its exploration of death, guilt, and regret. For fans of Lynne Ramsay, it’s a welcome return following a nine-year hiatus as she proves that she is one of the best filmmakers working today. In the end, We Need to Talk About Kevin is an outstanding film from Lynne Ramsay.

Lynne Ramsay Films: Ratcatcher - Morvern Callar - You Were Never Really Here

Related: Auteurs #6: Lynne Ramsay

© thevoid99 2011

Ratcatcher

Written and directed by Lynne Ramsay, Ratcatcher is the story of a boy living in 1973 Glasgow during a garbage strike as his life is changed by a horrifying event. The coming-of-age story follows a young boy dealing with his dreary environment as well as the guilt of his own actions as he tries to make sense of everything around him. Starring William Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews, Michelle Stewart, Lynne Ramsay Jr., and Leanne Mullen. Ratcatcher is a somber yet captivating drama from Lynne Ramsay.

After the death of a boy (Thomas McTaggart) at a canal nearby his apartment building, James Gillespie (William Eadie) is shocked over what happened as he feels responsible for the boy’s death. Surrounded by amounts of garbage around his home and his dad (Tommy Flanagan) often presented in a drunken stupor. James lives with his mother (Mandy Matthews), his older sister Ellen (Michelle Stewart) and the youngest in Anne Marie (Lynne Ramsay Jr.). With the boy’s parents (James Ramsay and Jackie Quinn) ravaged with grief, James deals with his guilt by hanging around Glasgow with friends including an animal-loving boy named Kenny (John Miller).

James later meets an older girl named Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen) where the two become friends amidst the chaos of the garbage strike happening. With James wondering where Ellen goes on a bus, he goes on a bus ride to a town where he goes inside a new, empty house. With the family hoping to move out of the dreary environment, James wanders around as he spends more time with Margaret Anne where he’s becoming sexually intrigued. When the garbage strike starts to end and James nearly gets his family in trouble when some people visit. Feeling alone and his world changing along with the reminder of what he’s done, James ponders his own existence in the world that he lives in.

The film opens with a boy messing around with a curtain as he goes to play with his friend unknowingly that this wild sense of innocence in a dirty canal would kill him. For the other person that was playing with him, it would change his outlook towards life as he would try and ponder what to do as well as deal with the things around him. Throughout the film, this young 12-year old boy would explore the opposite sex along with the idea of a world outside of dreary Glasgow which would further impact his loss of innocence.

Lynne Ramsay’s script is very entrancing in the way she follows the life of a young boy as he wanders around throughout his life. The script doesn’t have a lot of dialogue though the dialogue does contain frank language and subject matters that would further the development of James Gillespie. While his father might seem like a mean drunk, he’s not a total bad guy though his relationship with James is a bit complicated. At the same time, James’ relationship with his sisters and mother are much warmer despite some words though the audience never really figures out what Ellen does when she goes out of town.

The rest of the story plays loose through scenes where there’s a bit of fantasy but also moments of wandering which allows James to ponder the world around him through silent curiosity. Even as he is watching everything around him from the way kids try to kill rats amidst the pile of garbage to the way he always look at the dirty canal where the death of his friend happens. All of this is creating a major on a boy’s life and his outlook towards the world. Ramsay’s script is truly mesmerizing for the way she let the action take charge and let things play just as it is.

Through her direction, Ramsay creates a film that is very compelling and stark in its imagery and tone. Yet, there are a couple of sequences where things either play up as a semblance of hope or as a fantasy scene. The latter of which involves Kenny’s little mouse that provides a wonderfully imaginative scene. Some of the scenes Ramsay creates such as the scenes in the corn fields has a lush, naturalistic quality that will remind audiences of the work of the legendary Terrence Malick. The Malickian influence is prevalent in the way Ramsay let things play naturally where boys are running around and things happen including in an intimate moment where James’ parents are dancing to Frank and Nancy’s Sinatra’s Somethin’ Stupid.

The direction also has Ramsay create shots in various styles including some tracking steadicam shots to follow James running in despair over the things happening to him in the third act. There is also some amazing hand-held and steady dolly shots to help the audience be transfixed by the dreary world that these people are living in. Throughout the film, all of the pile of trash and garbage is seen to help enhance that sense of despair. Once all of it is gone, there’s a feeling of emptiness that becomes very heartbreaking. It’s strange that in this pile of trash along with vermin, lice, and rats. There’s a certain beauty to it in all of that decay as it serves as another character throughout the film. These little touches to detail along with the big moments in film help create was is truly a hypnotic yet ethereal film all due to Lynne Ramsay’s magnificent direction.

Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler does a superb job with the film‘s dreary yet gorgeous look to the film with its naturalistic look for many of the film‘s damp scenes. Kuchler also creates something very intimate for many of the film’s interior scenes to help maintain the stark mood of the film along with some underwater shots that is presented with a beauty as it’s among one of the film’s technical highlights. Editor Lucia Zucchetti does an amazing job with the editing in giving the film a mostly straightforward approach with elements of jump-cuts and slow-motion cuts. There’s also a few half-frame speed shots that adds a stylistic flair for the film.

Production designer Jane Morton and art director Robina Nicholson do excellent work with look of the film from the decayed apartments that are filled with garbage to the look of furniture and TV sets to maintain the look and feel of the 1970s. Costume designer Gill Horn does a good job with the costumes from the dresses and bellbottoms along with the suits to play up the look of the 70s and the dark tone of the film. Visual effects supervisor Steven Begg does a great job with the wonderful visual effects-driven fantasy sequence that involves the moon and mice playing around the moon as if it‘s the moon landing all over again. Sound recordist Richard Flynn does stellar work with the sound to capture the chaos of the surroundings including the intimacy in some of the quieter moments in the film.

The film’s music by Rachel Portman is definitely wonderful for its plaintive yet sparse score filled with harps and soft orchestral arrangements to see the melancholic mood of the film. The rest of the film’s soundtrack includes an array of music including Tom Jones, Eddie Cochran, the Chordettes, Frank & Nancy Sinatra, Nick Drake, and the famed Carl Orff piece Gassenhauer that was the theme from Malick’s 1973 film Badlands. The music in the soundtrack along with Portman’s score is another outstanding highlight of the film.

The casting by Gillian Berrie is phenomenal with its array of people who are either non-actors or unknowns from the likes of Craig Bonar and Andrew McKenna as a couple of older friends of James, Thomas McTaggart as the ill-fated Ryan, James Ramsay and Jackie Quinn as Ryan’s parents, and John Miller as the animal-obsessed Kenny. Michelle Stewart is very good as James’ older yet more outgoing sister Ellen while Lynne Ramsay Jr. is excellent as James’ livelier yet Tom Jones-loving younger sister Anne Marie. Leanne Mullen is radiant as Margaret Anne, a teenage girl whom Tommy befriends as she takes him in because he’s not like the other boys.

Tommy Flanagan and Mandy Matthews are great as James’ parents with Flanagan in the more aggressive though loving father who has a complex relationship with James. Matthews provides a much warmer performance as a woman who cares for James while being the glue in the family. Finally, there’s William Eadie in a powerful yet thrilling performance as James Gillespie. Eadie allows the camera to follow him as he is always observing everything around while clinging to some hope of being in a new home as he tries to deal with the idea that he possibly killed someone. Eadie is the highlight of the film as the innocent curiosity and very quiet performance is really the heart of the film.

The 2002 Region 1 DVD from the Criterion Collection presents the film in a pristine, digital transfers with theatrical aspect ratio of 1:85:1 that is enhanced for 16x9 widescreen television along with stereo surround sound. The film also includes optional English subtitles for the film’s distinct Scottish accent. The DVD also includes numerous special features that also features the three award-winning short films Lynne Ramsay made before delving into feature film.

The first major special feature is a 22-minute video interview with Lynne Ramsay made specifically for the DVD. Ramsay talk about her experience in film school along with the short Small Deaths which she didn’t think would go to the Cannes Film Festival but ended up winning her a prize at the festival. For Ratcatcher, she was approached by producers about creating a treatment which she didn’t know what to do but what she did ended up working. Ramsay also talks about her approach to directing and to create spontaneity throughout the film as well as casting the children she needed. Ramsay also talks about the use of sound and music, the latter of which she wanted to use score music minimally instead of having it be on a scene to convey emotion like a lot of films. Ramsay also discusses about wanting to make the characters real and things feel natural as the overall video piece is superb.

The second special feature are the three short films of Lynne Ramsay. The first is 1995’s Small Deaths which revolves on three different girls named Anne Marie in three different vignettes. In each vignette, these girls would encounter events such as a father going off to work, sisters playing around at a cow field, and a young woman seeing something horrible. It’s a brilliant short that features a lot of Ramsay’s directorial style such as small moments and close-ups of objects and creatures which won her the Jury Prize short award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.

The second short is 1996’s Kill the Day is the story of a lonely drug addict struggling to get clean after being jailed for thievery. While it’s a film that doesn’t feature a lot of dialogue with a much looser narrative. It is still compelling for its study of a man trying live day-by-day as he reflects on more innocent times as a child. The film again features more of Ramsay’s visual style that includes shots of nature and slow-motion edits as the short won her a Jury Prize at the 1997 Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival.

The third and final short is Gasman, a fifteen-minute short about a girl and her brother going to a Christmas party with their father. On their way, they meet a woman and her two kids as they all attend the party when the young girl is shocked by what the other girl says. This short is truly mesmerizing as it has a home-movie feel to it along with a looseness and improvisational approach that is captivating along with the performance of Lynne Ramsay Jr. as the young girl. The short would win another Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival as well as BAFTA Scotland award for Best Short.

Other small special features include the film’s theatrical trailer and a still gallery of photographs shot by the film’s second-unit director. Also included in the DVD set is a booklet that features an essay by Lizzie Francke. Francke’s essay discusses the film’s importance to British cinema as well as being among the great films about kids like Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. It’s a wonderful piece about a film that deserves to be seen to a wider audience.

Ratcatcher is a gorgeous yet harrowing film from Lynne Ramsay. Audiences that want films about great coming-of-age films about kids will see this as one of the definitive films of the last 20 years. Anyone new to Lynne Ramsay will definitely see this and her 2002 follow-up Morvern Callar as great places to start. Featuring amazing images, great use of music, and a phenomenal cast, it is a film that truly stands out for its realism and sense of imagination. In the end, Ratcatcher is a remarkable debut film from Lynne Ramsay.

Lynne Ramsay Films: Morvern Callar - We Need to Talk about Kevin - You Were Never Really Here - Auteurs #6: Lynne Ramsay

© thevoid99 2011

2011 Cannes Marathon: Morvern Callar

(Winner of the Award of The Youth & C.I.C.A.E. Award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival)

Based on the 1995 novel by Alan Warner, Morvern Callar tells the story of a woman who finds her dead boyfriend from suicide as well as his unfinished manuscript. In turn, she takes the manuscript and puts her name on it as she sells it to a publisher while going on a trip to Ibiza with her friend. Directed by Lynne Ramsay with an adapted script by Ramsay and Liana Dognini. It is a film that recalls the struggle of a woman trying to do what is right only to do things the wrong way. Starring Samantha Morton and Kathleen McDermott. Morvern Callar is a haunting yet intriguing film from Lynne Ramsay.

It’s Christmas morning as a woman named Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) has found her boyfriend dead from a suicide. Shocked, she finds her boyfriend’s suicide note with instructions about the money in his account as well as the manuscript that he just finished. Morvern then decides to go out to party with her friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott) as the two go out to a bar and later to a New Year’s Eve party at someone’s house. Morvern uses the party to escape though she and Lanna later visit Lanna’s grandmother as Morvern ponders what she’s going through as she found the mix-tape her boyfriend made for her. When she reads her boyfriend’s note with the instructions he left for her. She also finds his manuscript as she suddenly removes his name and puts hers in place.

Taking the money from her boyfriend’s account, she decides to go on a trip to Ibiza with Lanna as Morvern receives a letter from a publisher about her boyfriend’s book. Upon their arrival to Spain, Movern and Lanna go out for some fun which starts off well until grief starts to sweep in as Morvern meets a guy (Raife Patrick Burchell) whose mother had just passed away. Movern would have some fun with the guy as it would lead to more strange things as she and Lanna go on a drive with some guy (El Carrette) through the desert of Spain. Finally arriving to a nearby town, the two get swept up into the craziness of a gathering as they find themselves lost in the Spanish desert. Morvern decides to meet with the publisher Tom Boddington (James Wilson) about the book as she is given a deal that is extraordinary. Yet, it would also give Morvern a revelation about herself and everything that’s happened.

When faced with death, grief is one of the most complicated feelings to occur where the person dealing with death has no idea what to do. In the case of a film like this, it’s the story of a woman going on a personal journey following the death of her boyfriend while finding the manuscript that he wrote as she takes her name in place of his. What she doing isn’t entirely bad except for the fact that she’s taking credit for someone else’s work. It’s just that she is lost over what she encountered while trying to deal with it by going to parties and later taking her best friend on a holiday to Spain.

Since the film has no conventional plot where it’s mostly a lot of loose scenes of its titular character wandering around throughout the story. It’s an approach that is very engaging as Morvern is a woman just going through the motions as she uses her boyfriend’s death as an escape of sorts. An escape from the world that she lives in which is a small port town in Scotland while working in a job as unremarkable as being a supermarket clerk. At the same time, she lives in a world where it’s often very cold while she and her best friend Lanna just want to have fun and party like many young women.

Screenwriters Lynne Ramsay and Liana Dognini definitely create a story that is very loose in structure and in tone. Even as the first half is mostly played in Scotland where Morvern is trying to deal with her dead boyfriend, his finances, his manuscript, and his body. At the same time, she is pondering about a world outside of Scotland and outside of everything. In the second half of the film, Morvern and Lanna go to Ibiza and parts of Spain to party. Yet, it would create a rift of sorts as it’s clear that Morvern is still dealing with issues while the offer she’s given becomes overwhelming. Ramsay and Dognini use the looseness of the script to create a captivating character study as they let the audience follow this woman in her journey of self-discovery.

Ramsay’s direction is definitely a major highlight of the film in the way she presents everything as if it’s all in the moment. While there’s a bit of a stylized flair for a crazy sequence involving a driver that plays up to the craziness Morvern and Lanna encounter. Ramsay really goes for something that is very natural and loose. Even in scenes that seems something as unremarkable as Morvern at work or her just being all alone and staring at something. Even if it is a scene where she is just alone and listening to music. There is something unique about the simple presentation as it allows the audience to be invested in Morvern’s world.

Mostly shooting the film with hand-held camera along with some tracking shots throughout the film. Ramsay allows the camera to just play everything out as if the audience is another person watching everything. Notably a scene in Spain where the camera is in the middle of a gathering to see what is going on. Due to the looseness of the script and lack of plot, a casual filmgoer will find this to be very boring because they believe nothing is happening. Even as there isn’t a lot of dialogue throughout the film as Ramsay goes for something that is close to a silent film as it’s all about reactions and what the characters are feeling at the moment. Yet, this is how things happen in real life as Ramsay creates a film that is truly mesmerizing in its presentation and story.

Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler does a spectacular job with the film’s photography from the grimy yet grainy look of the scenes in Scotland to the colorful dazzle of the scenes in Spain. Kuchler’s camera work plays up to the atmosphere of each location as the scenes in Scotland play up to its cold tone. For the scenes in the parties including the clubs of Ibizia, there is something very colorful and stylized as it plays up the manic vibe of that world. Even as the photography becomes heightened and saturated for the surreal scene with the strange driver. Editor Lucia Zucchetti does an excellent job with the editing as it’s mostly straightforward while using jump-cuts to play with the film’s rhythm. Even in scenes where Morvern and Lanna are playing around as Zuchetti’s cutting also slow things down with slow-motion cuts to capture Morvern’s state of mind.

Production designer Jane Morton, along with art directors Philip Barber and James David Goldmark, does a very good job with the look of the film from Morvern‘s intimate yet grungy apartment to the lush world of Spain. Costume designer Sarah Blenkinsop does a wonderful job with the costumes as it plays through a mostly casual look for the clothes though the flower-colored dress Morvern wears late in the film is a real standout. Sound designer Paul Davies does a great job with the sound design in playing up to the chaotic atmosphere in the locations that the characters interact to the array of sounds that plays up to Morvern’s state of mind during a sex scene with a guy.

Music supervisors Maggie Bazin and Andrew Cannon create a dazzling soundtrack that is based on the mix-tape Morvern’s boyfriend makes. A lot of the music help brings some humor as well as playing to Morvern’s behavior. Among them are Can, Aphex Twin, Stereolab, Broadcast, the Velvet Underground, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Boards of Canada, Ween, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, and the Mamas & the Papas.

The casting by Des Hamilton is phenomenal as many of the people in the film are mostly non-professional actors or real people that play out in the film. Standing out are James Wilson as the publisher, Raife Patrick Burchell as a guy Morvern meets at a hotel in Spain, and El Carrette as a crazy driver Morvern and Lanna meet. Kathleen McDermott is superb as Morvern’s best friend Lanna, a party girl who likes to go out and have fun while being bewildered by Morvern’s behavior. Even as she is someone who tries to tell Morvern that she doesn’t really need anything.

Finally, there’s Samantha Morton in one of her greatest performances as the title character Morvern Callar. Morton’s performance is definitely eerie to watch for the way she manages to be a young woman dealing with grief as well as what to do with her life. There’s scenes where Morton can be funny, even in dark moment as she mostly performs without many dialogue and just let her body and movements do the acting. It’s truly one of the most fascinating performances ever shown in the 2000s.

Movern Callar is a hypnotic yet engrossing film from Lynne Ramsay featuring a radiant performance from Samantha Morton. Audiences wanting a drama that is very stripped down and not giving into a lot of style will certainly find this to be an enjoyable gem. Particularly with the way Ramsay chose to present the film in an unconventional style that doesn’t need to explain a lot nor let things be underwritten. It’s a film that really doesn’t go for any kind of tricks that is often seen in films while delving into something far more engaging. In the end, Morvern Callar is an extraordinary film from Lynne Ramsay.

Lynne Ramsay Films: Ratcatcher - We Need to Talk About Kevin - You Were Never Really Here

Related: Auteurs #6: Lynne Ramsay - Favorite Films #9: Morvern Callar

© thevoid99 2011