A Ghost Story (2017)

Broadly speaking, 'A Ghost Story' explores the themes of human existence and its relative position against time. A very human ghost movie.
If ghosts can make movies, I imagine the movie will be like this. A Ghost Story is their answer to a conventional haunted-house horror movie. What if sightings or self-propelled goods in haunted houses are caused more than those who want to harass us? What if this is not just a mischievous act? What if it turns out they have motives that are not only rational but also melancholy? We can not say that ghosts have no feelings. Who knows.


I became rambunctious. But A Ghost Story indeed raised the supernatural story from the point of view that we rarely encounter. The film takes perspective from the ghost. A wistful ghost. A ghost who can not move-on , then haunts the house where he and his wife lived during their lifetime. He was silent throughout the film. It's occasionally disturbing, but he's just a passive observer trying to find something. What is that? He was not sure at first. Therefore, this film is not a horror movie at all, rather than a lilting drama movie but also very deep. Broadly speaking, A Ghost Story explores the themes of human existence and its position relative to time. A very human ghost movie.

As far as I know, this is also the first serious film featuring ghosts in a ridiculous form. So true. You'll see the best actor Oscar last year, Casey Affleck spent most of the movie's duration in a ghostly costume made out of bed sheets that were hammered for the eye (though I can not be sure, because anyone can wear a bedspread costume and we will not notice the difference) AND nominees twice the best actress Oscar, Rooney Mara takes pie for 5 minutes, in real time , in a film that becomes a strong candidate as the best movie of the year. My version.

The ghost costume is ridiculous, but this is essential, I think. By locking Affleck (or anyone else) behind a bed sheet, we are "forced" to understand what he feels, unattached to his actor's expression. This fits perfectly with his subtle storytelling; what the bed sheets feel is what we think she feels. The sheets seemed to be the avatar of our feelings. The bedding experience becomes a personal experience.

The maker is David Lowery , director who is more familiar with indie films but last year successfully tried his luck in the blockbuster through Pete's Dragon . Like his last movie, Is not Them Bodies Saint , Lowery is referring to Terence Malick's narrative style. A Ghost Story fits as Malick's Tree of Life counterpart, as he intends to capture the grand scheme of life through a little life story in it, or in this case: death. When you've adapted to the very slow path, you will feel its emotional and spiritual outpouring. I think it will not be difficult, because this movie is about love and loss; everyone has lost someone / something they really love is not it?

Affleck and Mara play C and M, a couple who live in a worn out house in a quiet suburb. At night, they hear strange noises. M wants to move house, while C likes to the current house. They may be in conflict, but while sleeping still embrace intimately. Before getting to know them any closer, one morning C died behind the wheel, not far from home.


Once identified in the hospital by M, we see C lying stiff. The camera shoots it statically for a long time. But just before you will throw the screen out of annoyance, this bedspread gets up. Unwittingly, he walked and walked home. He saw M who was grieving hard to eat the pie in another unbroken static spotlight (for 5 minutes, I remind you again). The sheets tried to touch her, but M did not feel it.

Of course, eventually M move-on , then move house. But the sheets stayed, while the inhabitants came and went, starting from a Latino family with two children to a crazy old teenage party. He became a curious soul, looking for something tucked behind the wall of the house. Time went quickly, but the bedspread was still trapped there, even until the house was destroyed and changed into a luxury apartment.


This film plays with our perception of time. C is dead; the bed sheet is no longer a human but a ghost. Ghosts are not bound by time rules. Lowery illustrates that their perceptions of time are different from ours. He uses a sudden cut , does not explain clearly how long the time passes instead of leaving it to us to digest it ourselves. For the sheets, some short moments seemed long, while some long moments seemed to last for a while. He sees every second M feeding on pie (for 5 minutes, why am I constantly discussing this?), While at one point later when he witnessed the history of his house, it all happened in seconds. In my opinion, the bed linen only sees what is important to him.

There was a fascinating monologue from a teenager-old-mad-drunken party ( Will Oldham ) to his friends who were also heard by the sheets. Initially appreciate the art, the old teenagers even ramble about the place of humans in the course of time. When man dies, he leaves work, but life goes on. Our love, our loss, our lives are nothing ahead of time. However, they are also precious moments. You may think what this philosophical nonsense is, but A Ghost Story does not feel pretentious for not feeding us with philosophy. This movie just tells us to feel. In one scene, the bed sheet sees the ghost of a neighbor (who is also in the form of a bed sheet) ending his journey as he realizes his essence.

It's amazing how this simple movie could have such an emotional impact. Penggarapannya minimalist with a simple acting as well, but none of the scene seemed to be wasted. Lowery reportedly only do the filming process for 19 days only. He uses an almost square ratio of 1.33: 1 and then adds a round side instead of sharp, giving the impression that we are observers. This made her more intimate. The film lacks dialogue and almost no explicit conflict, but brilliantly explores the theme. Exposition at the beginning when M chatting with C about his childhood, it has a big role to answer the ending that I dare not reveal here, which I just found while watching both times.

A Ghost Story is an odd movie that seems to want to test your patience, but do not let that fact keep you from watching it. It also states that the film is very original. Lowery has just presented something big that can be summed up by a movie of something a little bit.

---

---

Should you follow @showflix?
If you are interested in what is in post @showflix or you need a reference movie that is up to date and does not want to miss the movies that will be released, then what are you waiting for, please follow @showflix.

Because @showflix also supports you writing something about it (or you). And I will not do a plagiarism of anything that belongs to you. The more followers we have, the happier we are, am I right? so, do you follow @showflix?

If you do that then you support @showflix to grow more rapidly. @showflix will be useful when you need a reference of quality and interesting movie. Moreover, you will not be stuck in the house, right? You also have to watch an interesting movie, then you can choose, review, and know the actor/actress who played a role in the movie.