Canterbury Film Society - Morvern Callar

Canterbury Film Society - Morvern Callar

MORVERN CALLAR / UK/Canada 2002 / 97 mins

Co-written by Ramsay and Liana Dognini, Morvern Callar is based on the 1995 novel by Alan Warner, arguably the first book to give the rave generation its literary papers of citizenship. Its young heroine (played by Samantha Morton) works in a supermarket in a Scottish port; in the depths of winter, she discovers her boyfriend has killed himself, leaving her his money and a completed novel on his computer. Morvern seems to go into shock, telling no-one about his death, but simply disposes of the body, sends the novel to a publisher under her own name and takes her best friend Lanna (played by Kathleen McDermott, a raucously sexy Glaswegian first-timer) off for a lark in Spain.

None of her actions are easily explicable ? you can't quite pin down whether she's numbed, crazy, on a revenge trip or performing some wayward act of mourning. Losing the book's first-person narrative, Ramsay obliges you to find your way into Morvern's unearthly head by other means. Another film-maker might have strained to make Morvern reassuringly comprehensible, giving her spree an unequivocally sobering moral, or making the story one of those cynically hip Getting It Away With It larks that British cinema is forever grinding out. Ramsay does something else: she doesn't exactly put us in Morvern's head, but into her skin... ? Jonathan Romney, The Independent

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928)

A reminder to members of the special screenings of THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC at Rangi Ruru on 19 and 20 August.

Tickets are on sale now and are only $10 for film society members. Book early to avoid missing out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Zealand International Film Festival 2011

August in Christchurch means only one thing to cinephiles - film festival time. This years edition will take place from August 11 to 28 at Hoyts Northlands.

Films that may be of interest to film society members including the latest from 2009 film society guest Lech Majewski are:

THE MILL & THE CROSS - ?A miracle of technology in the service of the artistic imagination, Lech Majewski?s brilliant film transports its viewers into the living, breathing world of Pieter Bruegel?s dense frieze of Christ?s passion, The Way to Calvary? Bruegel?s 1564 painting sets the drama of the crucifixion within a rustic Flanders scene teeming with everyday life. (?About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters,? wrote W.H. Auden. ?How well they understood / Its human position; how it takes place / While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.?) Likewise Majewski ? using computer-generated blue-screen compositing, new 3D technology, just-so location shooting in Poland, Austria and New Zealand and a massive backdrop he painted by hand ? tells the story of the painting largely through closely observed secular rituals of 16t-century Flemish daily life, in all its earth-toned grubbiness, with occasional scenes revealing Bruegel?s artistic choices and the politics of the day..." Graham Leggat, San Francisco International Film Festival

MEEK'S CUTOFF - Kelly Reichardt?s beautiful, eerily poetic alt-Western follows three families heading west in 1845, their tiny wagon train lost somewhere in Oregon. Intimate in detail but epic in implication, Meek?s Cutoff quietly defies the abiding Westward Ho! mythology to privilege women?s experience and to picture the settlers, hauntingly, as fearful, foolhardy venturers in an unending wilderness. ? BG

13 ASSASSINS - Director Miike Takashi is a filmmaking machine and 13 Assassins is the maestro cranking it in top gear. Turning towards the chambara (sword-fighting movies) he adored as youth, he?s applied a much bigger budget and taken far more care than usual to create one of the finest Japanese films in years. In 1844, Japan is ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Shimada Shinzaemon is secretly asked to assassinate an evil lord. Shinzaemon assembles a Dirty Dozen plus one to ambush the lord on his annual journey home. Outnumbered 15 to one, it appears they have no chance of surviving. Luckily honour, heart and a trick or two may just balance the books. Miike, channelling epic Kurosawa, has enough humour and nods to contemporary Japanese society to create something fresh and new out of the past. The final 45 minutes of this film could be his best orchestrated action sequence, a true marvel of construction and fiery kinetic thrills. ? AT

METROPOLIS - The latest, and surely the most complete, resurrection we?ll ever see of Fritz Lang?s colossal 1927 futuristic thriller follows the discovery in Buenos Aires in 2008 of a worn 16mm print, including some 25 minutes thought lost since distributors wielded the axe soon after the film?s premiere. This footage has now been cut into the superb 2002 restoration (which covered many of the absent scenes with explanatory title cards), combined with a new recording of the original 1927 orchestral score and transferred to HD for distribution to 21st-century cinemas. (The NZSO will present the film in November with a live performance of the same score.) BG

DAYTIME TIGER - Costa Botes? portrait of New Zealand writer Michael Morrissey is indeed a tiger-ride ? an up-close encounter with an extremely intelligent man in the grip of bipolar disorder. It?s also a harrowing portrait of marriage vows tested to the extreme. Morrissey was diagnosed with manic depression in 1999 but long rejected available medication, believing it would stymie his genius. Having failed to find a publisher for his written account, he invited the filmmaker into his house to record his battle to ?tame the tiger? through willpower. Botes gives full reign to his subject?s convictions, clearly staggered by the phenomenally rapid idea association taking place when ?the genius? is on a manic talking jag. But he also keeps a prudent distance. His footage of Morrissey in full flight should surely convince any remaining romanticists that there is nothing creative about being bipolar. Michael Morrissey, reportedly shocked into accepting medication when he saw himself, is unlikely to be alone in benefiting from this brave and terrifying film. ? BG

Programmes are available at the venue, libraries, service centres and cafes and tickets are on sale now from Hoyts Northlands or online through www.hoyts.co.nz.

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