The “technically unmatched” movie that inspired Lynne Ramsay: “A modern classic”
Lynne Ramsay might have graduated from making movies set in her native Scotland to American-focused productions on a bigger scale, but her interest in digging deep into the psychological workings of her characters remains constant, leading to her most recent work of doing so in the form of Die, My Love.
The controversial film explores a woman’s struggle with depression and psychosis post-partum, its plot mirroring her spiral into pure chaos, making for an uneasy watch that you’ll likely walk away from with a heaviness in your chest. While the weight of the protagonist’s emotions is both unavoidable and unforgettable, this is just one instance of her many explorations of the varied angles of motherhood.
Prior to Die, My Love, Ramsay focused on a woman’s guilt and struggle to understand her teenage mass murdering child in We Need To Talk About Kevin, while her earlier cinematic exploits saw her expertly capture the erratic and strange nature of grief, particularly in Morvern Callar, a quiet masterpiece led by a beautiful performance from Samantha Morton, making for an oveure that shows that the female experience, grief, and the quest for understanding, stability, belonging, or something more are defining themes of Ramsay’s work.
She often presents us with the daily brutalities of life, highlighting the violence of the everyday without the intensity that many Hollywood dramas would opt for, which is what makes her films so startling, as proven best in the opening scene of Morvern Callar, when the titular character finds her boyfriend dead on Christmas Day. There’s no horrific scream as she stumbles upon his body, but we simply see her lying beside him as the Christmas tree lights flash, showing her still and silent, trying to absorb the reality she’s faced with.
Over the years, Ramsay has taken inspiration from the gritty social realism of the likes of Alan Clarke and Tony Richardson, while Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman, French New Wave icon Agnes Varda, and Italian arthouse master Lina Wertmüller have also impacted her creative choices, but her influences don’t remain strictly stuck in the past, as she revealed with her lauding of this widely heralded black and white feature.
It’s often hard to tell if a newer film is going to become a future classic, but with this one, Ramsay had no doubts in her mind, highlighting its awe-inspiring qualities, which reminded her of the importance of storytelling.
Discussing her love for the Oscar-winning Roma by Alfonso Cuarón, the filmmaker praised it for “making an epic drama of two women’s everyday life and life-changing events into totally immersive cinema”, further noting, “The sound and image make you feel you’re inside it, experiencing her [Cleo]. Virtual reality, but more emotional. Incredible on the big screen. If you have to see it smaller with the best sound system.”
Roma was a hit when it was released in 2018, receiving widespread acclaim from critics, with the movie following a housekeeper during the early 1970s, living with a much wealthier family, making for an incredible exploration of class, identity, and the social divides that threaten to interfere with our innate experience of humanity.
Cuarón’s film is full of love and nostalgia, and hence, it’s no surprise it received so much award buzz that year, with Ramsay adding, “A modern classic, a rarity now. Technically unmatched. Every detail and moment, so considered but feel just happened upon. So many scenes remain indelibly seared on the brain, the surrealism of life, the connections, horror, humour and beauty.”
You can certainly see why she loves the film, which similarly digs into grief and gender, which are themes that she keeps returning to, concluding, “Reminding what a movie can (still) do really inspired me”.
