Meepy coded
I had a garbled message in French on my answering service when I came in to work on Monday, and I really have no idea how I worked out what the message meant. In any case, it was from the local CD store, saying that my order for the soundtrack to Movern Callar had arrived.
I had already written what I thought about Movern Callar, the movie. It is a quirky, intense film with plenty of swinging moods, and the soundtrack is the tape of music that Movern's boyfriend made for her before he committed suicide, meaning that it is an intrinsic part of the film's storyline.
Now, I'm not terribly well-educated on independent labels — I simply know what I like and what I don't. Whilst watching the movie, the soundtrack struck me as magical, reminding me of Tom Waits in parts, perhaps because the music is not necessarily what you would call "comfortable". The tracks by Aphex Twin had me nailed. In any case, I felt that the music added an extra dimension to the film, stating undertones and undercurrents where the images of the film could have very well been representing something else quite different.
Yet, this review of the CD is scathing, and this isn't flattering either. It seems they don't like the moodswings of the CD. However, Jeff Beck liked it. Oh, and this is a review of the movie I just found:
My main problem with Movern Callar is that I never felt a connection with the main character. She starts out as a sort of amoral character, and as she travels geographically and gets into various adventures in Spain, she doesn't seem to be traveling emotionally in any way. It makes one wonder just how close she was to her dead boyfriend — nothing is revealed about him, except that he was a very talented young novelist and cheated on Callar with her best friend. I found myself wondering why I should care about her trials and tribulations. The thing that seemed most tragic was not so much her boyfriend's suicide, but rather her lack of reaction to or processing of the event.
Amoral? Gosh. I just thought she was really lost and didn't know what she wanted, and hence preferred to be elsewhere compared to Scotland. (It brings back a recurring thought — do we have a problem within our society whereby most people can only deal with the black and white, right or wrong, and are unable to properly deal with uncertainty or unable to come to possible conclusions when not all the facts are there?)
And how would you deal with it if your significant other or spouse committed suicide regardless of your relationship? The entire film has the effect of being shell-shocked and a bit out of kink with reality, which, to me, feels more real than having all the facts and relationships laid out for the audience like a stall at the market with all its wares spread out on a cloth, being bleached by the sun.
Anyway, it seems to be a difficult CD to get hold of. You can buy it from Warp Records (whose website is much too messy for my liking).
Posted by sniffles at April 30, 2003 08:45 AM