MORVERN CALLAR  2016

On Christmas morning, Morvern Callar (Samatha Morton) wakes up to discover that her boyfriend, a troubled writer, has taken his own life in the apartment they share, leaving behind an assortment of lovingly wrapped presents: a leather jacket, a Walkman with a carefully curated mixtape, and instructions on what to do with the completed manuscript of his final novel. After a few days spent numbly going about her everyday routine, Morvern surreptitiously disposes of her lover’s body, puts her own name on his manuscript, and takes off for a vacation in Spain with her best mate Lanna (Kathleen McDermott). Refusing to psychologize its inscrutable protagonist, Ramsay’s adaptation of Alan Warner’s prizewinning novel threads its minimal, stream-of-consciousness narrative together with the mixtape-derived soundtrack (which includes cuts from Aphex Twin, The Velvet Underground, Boards of Canada, and Nancy Sinatra), the woozy beats combining with the trance-like visuals to offer a cryptic key to Morvern’s state of mind. “As richly detailed as Ratcatcher, but with far less action and dialogue, Morvern Callar asks the viewer to make a leap of faith into its absurd, frustrating beauty” (Kristin M. Jones, Film Comment).

Friday, December 12