MORVERN CALLAR (Lynne Ramsay, 2002) R

Reviewed: December 20th, 2002

I read an interview where Samantha Morton was discussing how sexy her Morvern Callar director Lynne Ramsay is, and after watching their movie, I'm not surprised. This is one of the most sensual films I've ever seen, a nearly experimental, almost dialogue-free, haunting, elusive and thoroughly transfixing oddity. Ramsay seems to be making love to Morton (playing the titular character) with her camera here, and in a year overloaded with superficially beautiful films, Morvern Callar is perhaps the apex (though its beauty is by no means strictly on the surface). Every image is a stunner, suffused with enough texture, surreal ambiguity and gravitas (not to mention lovely and cautiously exaggerated sound editing; I think I coulda watched Morton's fingernail-painted hand flick that lighter on and off all evening) to leave you reeling, but nothing ever feels superfluous or show-offy because Ramsay is too supple a lover, utterly comfortable amongst her chosen palette of visuals sans words as she executes shots which infest your brainstem like chemicals. Stephanie Zacharek rightly calls Morvern Callar a "tone poem;" the first two-word description that popped into my mind unbidden was the cliched phrase "pure cinema."

Morvern Callar follows a woman of the same name whose boyfriend has just committed suicide. I know from interviews Ramsay wouldn't wanna see me write this, but truth be told, the plotting is scarce (rest assured there is a plot, though, and "scarce plotting" is never a criticism in and of itself) and Ms. Callar, as intended, remains a bit of a cipher throughout. The miracle of Morvern Callar though is that it's not so much a character study as an all too rare evocation of any number of conflicting emotions surrounding loss, a placid lake or tumbling sea or crashing ocean of feelings which verbal exchanges simply wouldn't be able to do justice to. There is, for instance, the remarkable sequence where Morvern meets a stranger. The conversation consists of little more than: 'How are you?' 'My mom just died. Stay. Make me feel better.' 'I could tell you about my mom's funeral.' which is precisely all we need to hear before Ramsay launches into an intimate fucking that recalls the sad but glorious passion of Nic Roeg's legendary sex scene in Don't Look Now.

This comment is gonna strike most people as hyperbole, but after only eleven films under her belt I feel confident proclaiming the 25 year old Morton as one of the greatest actresses in cinema history. In past reviews I've futilely tried to put into words what makes Morton so astonishing and came up short each time. (Morton's 2002 triumphs already included the year's best supporting actress portrayal in Minority Report; now she's neck and neck with Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl for my best lead actress accolades as well.) If I had to sum up the soul of her talent in one word, however, I'd hit back upon the aforementioned purity. Samantha Morton doesn't give a performance, she embodies a character; her wholly responsive, chameleon-like face and body have a remarkable ability to morph into camouflage. Stanley Kubrick once said there is no such person as Peter Sellers and the same might be remarked about Morton. She grew up in foster homes and she won't discuss her childhood except to say she never saw many films. Perhaps this is why there is the sense you're witness to something revolutionary watching Morton: she cannot be imitating or riffing or being derivative since she's unaware of what's come before. Morton was nominated for an Oscar as a mute in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown and essentially played a mute again in Minority Report (plus a little screaming), but lest anyone think Morton is merely one of the greatest silent actresses in cinema history, go watch her mesmerizing turn in Carine Adler's Under the Skin (her first film and probably the best fusion of Morton's gifts seen on screen yet), her ferocious work in Alison Maclean's Jesus' Son and then Morvern Callar. Morton's Callar dialogue is few and far between, but present, and as ever she's incapable of delivering a single false syllable.

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