The vexed generatio
Don’t think of MORVERN CALLAR as a club film, says director Lynne Ramsay: it’s more like punk rock. Words: Neil Cooper
t was the sort of book you gave as a goodbye present to
the not-for—life-but—not-just-for-(‘hristmas-either types.
just passing through en rotrte to somewhere better. .llm'i'ern ('ul/ur. Alan Warner‘s tale of one small town girls getting of wisdom while going mad for it. at home and away. read like a first-person crash‘n’burn existentialist road movie in waiting. complete with a soundtrack to live and die for.
.\'ow that the waiting‘s over it's clearer than ever how. in the wrong hands. that road movie could’ve all gone horribly wrong. In the hands. say. of a hip and used-to-be—happening hangover from the (‘ool Britannia days. it could have ended up like some day-glo .\lTV pastiche. buffed-up and choreographed so perfectly it wotrld he as if it had had its soul airbrushed away.
But. in the tiny. mighty hands of Lynne Ramsay. auteur and director of R(ll('(ll('/l(’l'. GUS/HUN and Small Dear/Is. originals in every way. it‘s all gone beautifully. quietly right. Because. Ramsay's .WUI'H'I‘II (ill/(tr has stayed ultra true to the living-in-her—head-when-she‘s-not-off-it spirit of its rtmaway heroine. And. in translation. she has put a fragile but indelible stamp on it that‘s all her own.
In a white room. all in black. Lynne Ramsay is telling it how it was with brisk efficiency: about how she already knew the book of the filth before she got the gig. about how it wasn‘t actually that long a journey from page to screen. about how she wanted to film the cltrb scenes as she knew them first hand. 'sort of with people btit in your own space.‘ and about how ‘this amazing character seemed very personal’ to her. She can’t put her linger on how. exactly. but maybe it was the moment
38 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE Au: .“
when. in her own misspent early ‘)()s youth. all night at Pure. the quick-fix pleasure-seeking rush soon paled. ‘After a while.’ she says. ‘you just thought: “What’s the fucking point?”
The point of .Vlorvern is she‘s a woman of no importance with no visible means of support. who doesn‘t so much find herself as re-invent herself in a way that only economic freedom will allow. Set on ()ban. it‘s the story of a young woman who finds her boyfriend dead. before she finds his unpublished novel and passes it off as one of her own. It‘s a good old-fashioned rites of passage affair.
Before her very personal epiphany. however. .\lorvern and eventually left-behind best pal and bath-mate Lanna. who makes do with ‘a good laugh'. come on like a Thelma and Louise for the chemical generation. a pair of strappy. yappy. halter- topped—up package tour hedonists stumbled arse over micro-skirt from a lly-on-the-beach. late—night (‘hannel 5 shock-doc.
‘lt‘s definitely not a club film.~ Ramsay is keen to point out. ‘and I don’t want it looked on as such. because they‘ve all been so terrible. It’s more about the identity crisis within that generation. where you‘re going clubbing and taking drugs and all that stuff: but it wasn‘t like the ()()s. where it was a big rebellion against something. be it Vietnam or the bomb. Here it’s more just about hedonism for its own sake. and while there‘s nothing wrong with that — I'm not looking at it from a moral point of view —‘ l was aware of it being about a lost generation. Morvern and Lanna are good characters to have in opposition. because .‘\lorver'n‘s looking for the real Spain
‘lt’s about hedonism for its own sake and about a lost generation’