The 21-year-old Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton in perhaps her greatest performance) awakens to find her boyfriend has committed suicide on Christmas Day, leaving behind a novel manuscript. Instead of calling for help, she disappears into hedonism, first in Scotland over the New Year period, and then on an impromptu holiday to Spain with her best friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott), paid for with the money Morvern’s boyfriend left behind for the funeral. On the sunny Spanish coast, she finds only a clawing sense of emptiness and melancholy.

Scottish director Lynne Ramsay had already made her mark on world cinema with her first film, Ratcatcher (1999). Her second feature, an adaptation of Alan Warner’s cult novel of the same name marked her out as one of the major voices of 21st century cinema, a director with an eye for the effervescent and the poetic, allied to a keen perception of the alienating effects of modern-day life.

With a soundtrack that features The Velvet Underground, Krautrock pioneers Can, and Boards of Canada, this hypnotic masterpiece is further elevated when projected on 35mm film.

A 35mm presentation as part of 100 prints project courtesy of BFI National Film Archive.

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