| USA, 2017 | Drama/Fantasy | Independent | Trailer |
This movie always caught my attention for the simple reason of its promotional images, that suggest a delightfully odd content. The image of a ghost represented by an entity covered by a long drape of white cloth hanging from its “head” is traditionally infantile, and seeing it incarnated in a live-action film without any darker or mature modification over its appearance is strange enough to awake a mild curiosity towards this film. Furthermore, the yuxtaposition of this particular character with a more normative somber interior -as common as it is for suggesting a haunted house-, denoted that this was going to be an experience, if not memorable, at least worthy to try out.
A Ghost Story does not lie. It verily is a story about a ghost. This is not an uncommon topic, as the imagery of a deceased person’s spectral body is well-known and has been explored in a powerful plethora of works, that range from the traditional horror to more human dramas where identity and character are put on the table. This movie does also not pretend to innovate in the genre, as it serves more as a mean to express and discuss some very human feelings and desires on a filmic level rather than telling the story per se (perhaps it lies just a little bit with its title then!).
The excuse is the death of the male main character -which is very subtly shown, as matters of deceasement are not important here-, and the permanence of his ghost in this world. It is suggested that it returns to the house where he lived with his wife as an act of staying with her and trying to accompany her during her grief and trying to comfort her, but it turns out that ghosts are transparent to humans, while they are able to interact with inert matter. However, the longer we watch this movie, we start to notice that this initial desire to stay with her turns into a desire to stay. To remain. The ghost stays in the house, long after his wife moves out, and we see how years pass by as quick as seconds whilst it silently stays and observes the ever changing domestic life (and lack of life when tenants move out) around it. It is, in fact, not tied to the house as it can still exist out of it, but willingly (or not?) chooses to stay inside it. Some desire remains in it, but how far is this desire still the same that made it want to stay and remain?
This movie is slow in pace, as it focuses on the contemplative (after)life of the main character. The topics it discusses are not told, but we get slight ideas of what we are perceiving. This exercise of silent discussion is fabulous. This is one of that kind of movies where each individual audience can do different lectures on. We can understand that this movie talks, aside of the very human desire of permanence -or remembrance at least- about love, encloisterment, stagnation, apathy, observation… but to me, the most powerful suggestion is about how we humans develop in a way that we forget our initial motivations and carry on with our activities without exactly knowing why, and perhaps our motives change whilst we internally “adapt them” to our customs. Who knows.
It is also remarkable how A Ghost Story insists in showing scene compositions with an abundance of parallel lines, vertical or horizontal, that indeed deliver an impression of “being trapped” inside a closed and narrow space. Not only physically, but also animically. It also employs Bressonian and Warholian filmic resources of extending some of the shown actions until monotony. This may deliver a feeling of boredom in the audience, but it also creates the effect of maximizing the impact and digestion of the moments of rupture of these actions, where we can feel their narrative or thematic significance on higher levels.
When reading about this movie, director David Lowery confessed he was inspired by his own feelings of attachment towards the first house where he lived with his wife, and reflections on how the people that stay in a certain location can certainly imprint their feelings and presence in it, while it does the same on them. This is magnifically reflected on the transition and final revelation of the final details of the main character’s personality, mixing life and afterlife. It delivers an ending nuance that closes the circle and makes us certainly perceive that his movie is well-planned and that, in its apparently empty content, verily some soul exists.
