Monday, September 22, 2008

Stand In The Christmas Lights And Dissolve

Morvern CallarDirected by Lynn Ramsay(2002)
Mix tapes from the dead and stolen novels, mean ambigious beautifully photographed crowded dance halls and lonely deserts. After Morvern's boyfreind kills himself on Christmas Day, he leaves a note saying "don't try to understand, be strong, pay for my funeral with my account and send my book to the publishers", and instead she cuts up his corpse burries him(after several days of him on the kitchen floor), signs her name to his book, and uses the advance to go on a trip to Spain to with her best freind, who she later ditches in the desert.
Though the journey sounds thrilling and surreal, and it many of its finest moments it is, it's a also haunted one, beautifully photographed and excellently aurally composed. It is as much and visual and tonal expression of isolation as it is a feast for the senses. There's very little dialogue and somewhat thick scottish accents are a little hard to hear without subtitles, in many scenes though what is audible is often fighting over the roar of crowds or the roar of music. Not unike Callar herself, one small voice, among many, being at best, partially heard, but talking on anyway. Samantha Morton (the main pre-cog in Minority Report) is hypnotic and commanding, as is the movie in general.
One of the best Christmas films in years!
"Stand in the Christmas Lights and dissolve"- Marnie Stern, Grapefruit

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