A GHOST STORY (2017)
Directed by David
Lowery
A24, 92 minutes, R
(for no good reason whatsoever)
★★★★
We often use the words "film" and
"movie" as synonyms. They can be, but film is actually the medium and
is more versatile. When film is used to tell a story, we call it a
"movie," but that's inadequate for something like A Ghost Story, which is filled with
non-linear imagery, alternative realities, and eschatological questioning. It
does feature a ghost, but its spooky qualities are far beyond that of garden-variety
horror movies. We're talking the sort of haunting that will leave you
shattered. Director David Lowery tackles the scariest thing imaginable: What
happens when we die?
Actress Jeanne Moreau may not be your idea of a philosopher,
but she once uttered these wise words: "It's just as idiotic to say there is no
life after death as it is to say there is one." Gaze into the sky and
tell me why humankind is special. Alternatively, how does one reconcile the
concept of eternity with assertions from physics that at some point, all suns,
stars, and galaxies will vanish into black holes? What if the Buddhists are
right and Nirvana is a state of nothingness? Meaning is on trial in A Ghost Story, a film in which the
characters don't even have names.
A Ghost Story will remind you
of films such as The Tree of Life; 2001:
A Space Odyssey; Melancholia; Wings
of Desire; and even Truly, Madly,
Deeply, though our ghost can't comfort the grieving lover he leaves behind.
The film stars—more in a celestial than a celebrity sense—Casey Affleck, who
spends most of the film wordlessly wandering under a shroud. We first meet him
living and breathing in bed next to Rooney Mara, where they cuddle in near
silence avoiding discussion of another one they did not have earlier. Suddenly
the living room piano emits a loud discordant sound, though no one else is in
the house and nothing visible has fallen on the keys. If these things sound
meta, add to the list that Mara's skin is pale, luminous, and cadaverous, but
it is Affleck who the next day lies in the morgue. His sheeted body—or is it
his spirit?—rises from the gurney, walks down the hospital corridor toward a
bright light, but pauses and the portal closes. Then things get really weird.
When we next see him, his spectral self stands in his kitchen watching Mara angrily
stab and devour an entire pie in an
attempt to strike at her consuming grief. The scene is drawn out, silent,
poignant, and simultaneously grotesque and beautiful.
Is Affleck in purgatory? Maybe, but the film raises questions
about ante and postmortem existence, themes expounded upon later in the film
when a future party pooper (Will Oldham) delivers a lecture on the inevitable
demise of the cosmos. It's the only part of the film that has more than a few
words of dialogue. Some party-goers listen; others continue to make merry. After all, what
more can be said about a void? The ghost witnesses this scene, as he does other
inhabitants and events that take place in the house after Mara departs it. Is
it because he is tethered to this plot of land? Is it simply that because time
is irrelevant to a spirit, or something else? Many readings are possible, but
it put me in mind of Einstein's discovery that time and space bend. An offshoot
of that is Eternalism, the postulate that past, present, and future
coexist—perhaps in other dimensions, perhaps in repeating loops. The film itself
is circular in construction and moves from present to future to past, and back
to the present. A dimensional shift is suggested in the meta of all meta scenes
in which Affleck's ghost momentarily sees his own ghost in a room with his
living self.
What are we to make of all this? That's probably up to you.
You could put a Buddhist spin on it, but you can also make the case for
everything from existentialism, nihilism, and Cartesian dualism. There are also
hints of the African concepts of sasha
and zamani that assert that the dead
exist in limbo as long as anyone alive remembers them, then they move on. Or
maybe it's all just a matter of physics. Just two things are clear to me.
First, though death is universal, this is not a film for everyone. To
appreciate it you need to put on your hard thinking caps and be prepared to
confront Lovecraft-like unseen fears. If you're not willing, join the
merrymakers and tune out impending doom.
Second, A Ghost Story
is visually astonishing. Director James Lowery and choreographer Andrew Droz
Palermo provide new angles from which to contemplate big things—literally.
Tight shots combine with slow zoom outs to create heart-rending moments such as
the folds of Affleck's shroud and his twisted figure melding seamlessly into
Mara's sleeping body entwined in sheets. In another, Mara lies on her back,
stretches, and her fingers inch upward across the floor, where they almost touch the hem of Affleck's spectral
garment. Later, high and low angle shots combine to make scenes cramped and
claustrophobic from a human point of view, but wide open and expansive from a
ghostly perspective. Others induce vertigo; still others skew normal perspective—such
as having the ghost fall upside down from a skyscraper, yet with the grace of a
bird in flight.
This is one the longest movie reviews I have ever posted in
part because of the subject matter, and in part because I haven't stopped
thinking about this the film since viewing it. Perhaps what I've written
strikes you as a lot of incoherent mumbo-jumbo masquerading as art. It might
be, but I think it is a near masterpiece marred only by logical inconsistencies
in it that have nothing to do with its irresolvable subjects. The ghost isn't
seen by the living, yet it's inferred one small boy does so. Why? If the ghost
is non-corporeal, how can he hurl dishes around a room, scratch at door frames,
or turn doorknobs? Why would a ghost even use
a door? But given that he does, why is he stuck to this one place? Why does he
defy some laws of physics but conform to others? Why choose just one moment to
be malevolent?
Maybe these are the wrong questions to ask. Perhaps the point
of making a near-silent film is to force us to contemplate the ineffable
without the clutter of words. Do we know what's under our own shrouds? Is it a
new light in the cosmos, just stardust, or nothing at all? This is a strange,
quirky, ambiguous film that back in the 1960s would have labeled a
"mind-fucker." Wait for the end. Is the reveal satisfying, or the
most terrifying thing you can imagine. Work it out for yourself. This is a film, not a movie.
Rob Weir
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