The acclaimed filmmaker picks her favourite films from MUBI’s catalogue.
With her latest, the gritty thriller You Were Never Really Here, opening in UK/ROI cinemas this week, Lynne Ramsay has hand picked her favourite movies from the vaults of streaming service MUBI.
Ramsay talks about her choices below:
Meshes in the Afternoon – Showing on MUBI on Friday 9th March
My tutor at Napier College showed me this when I was studying photography. A 14 minute silent movie made at home, and I was blown away by its imagination. The strange, disturbing atmosphere, the camera moves and edits to make impossible dream time and space, the hooded figure with mirror face, the dreaming woman at the window who becomes three! I felt like I was in a house of ghosts. As a photographer it connected with me deeply and inspired me to go to film school.
The Last Picture Show – Showing on MUBI on Wednesday 14th March
That feeling of burgeoning awkward teenage sexuality and being stuck in a dead-end town is brilliant. It’s the seminal film evocation of that. Cybill Shepherd undressing on the diving board. Cloris Leachman’s sex scene with Timothy Bottoms to the sound of the creaking bed, and her emotional explosion to him at the end really affected me. Such an amazing sense of place created by Polly Platt’s production design and costumes.
The Battle of Algiers – Showing on MUBI on Sunday 18th March
It's amazing how contemporary and relevant this looks and feels. Like it was made last week, not in 1965. The style might seem familiar now, but this was the first, and way ahead of its time. It doesn’t judge and the ideas are complex. To call its style ‘reportage’ is a simplification. Not a frame of it feels inauthentic but there’s very sophisticated craft in the cinematography, editing, sound design, music, casting, and locations. The sound in particular is incredible. It’s a cinematic masterpiece.
MUBI is currently showing Ramsay’s second film Morvern Callar to audiences in the UK as part of a month-long celebration of female filmmaking.
You Were Never Really Here is released in UK/ROI cinemas by Studiocanal March 9th. You can check out a new clip below: