Life Can Never Be Exactly Like We Want it to Be" ...But, for Starters, You Have to Want Something...
Movern Callar - Directed by Lynne Ramsay
Reviewed by Catherine MacLennan
Has there ever been a time when non-thinking (and non-feeling) people have been given such prominence? They rule television, from the Jerry Springer-type screaming shows and court-type feud programs during the day to endless 'reality' shows during the evening. When they commit crimes, they're on TV again (and in the newspapers), receiving extensive coverage of their 'callous' treatment of others, 'immaturity,' 'impulsive behavior' and 'disrespect for human life.' They appear in fictionalized form in short stories and novels, and movies (Hollywood and 'independents'). Instead of serving up the freak-show-with-laughs of Jerry Springer or the 'excitement' of the contests of the 'sexy' dunces in the evening, Lynne Ramsay's film Morvern Callar depicts the non-thinking/non-feeling being as simply a dead, dull, repetitive creature.
Morvern Callar's boyfriend has committed suicide; the film opens with his dead body, face down, right beside the Christmas tree, lights cheaply-prettily flashing on and off. She reads a note he has left for her that indicates where his finished novel is. Without any anguish and only a flicker of hesitation, she erases his name as the author, and enters her name instead. Again without any anguish, she is soon chopping up his body; she must have felt his corpse would complicate things. She withdraws money from his bank account, not to pay for his funeral, as suggested in his note, but for a mindless beach holiday to Spain with her supermarket co-worker. She drinks and parties with stupid people there, not terribly different from the drunken-drug parties we see her at in Scotland, just sunnier, and in bathing suits. While in Spain, she and her friend go to another town, not knowing where they are going, and, lost, she abandons her friend on a road in the middle of nowhere. In the meantime there is a letter from a publisher responding to 'her' book. She doesn't seem to realize the importance of this letter and it is only when one of representatives of the company mention the amount of money to be paid, that she suddenly is shocked and interested. Money. She and her friend are back in Scotland. The cheque arrives with The Money. In the local pub, she asks her friend if she wants to go back to Spain again. Her friend says she's happy there (Scotland) and calls Morvern a dreamer to want go anywhere else because it's all the same. Morvern isn't happy, but doesn't know why, because that would require reflection; she can only understand basic, repetitive sensation. Throughout the film, we see her with an expressionless look on her face; at the beginning we wonder if it is a stunned look of grief in reaction to the death, but over the length of the film the expressionless face is understood to be the face of the empty, non-reflective life. At the end, she is in a Spanish disco, the same expressionless look on her face, headphones on.
Samantha Morton is completely believable in the lead role; her non-expression perfectly captures the bottomless emptiness of her character - a person that can only grab money, cheap holidays in the sun, drugs and pop music while stealing from and cutting up a dead boyfriend or abandoning a friend in a strange country. Though there are brief flashes of youthfulness (skipping down a street with her friend), Morvern Callar is old before her time. Just as a curiosity and energy about life are what can make older people young, the absence of this in the young can make them old. Samantha Morton's young, yet not quite young appearance is a perfect Morvern.
The cinematography, often colourful, mixes the beautiful with the ugly, the Christmas tree and the dead body, the lights and colours of the party scenes; the pretty Scottish countryside and burying of the body. While the pop soundtrack is usually a lazy and/or lucrative reflex, it works here both as part of the story (the dead boyfriend left her a cassette of songs; the inward necessity of pop music to young people) and to the mood of the movie - the druggy-numb minimalism and weird tinkling of the techno music, the weird druggy songs from the sixties (Velvet Underground, Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra), ending with the beautifully gloomy "Dedicated to the One I Love" by the Mamas and the Papas.