 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: A Ghost Story • Year: 2017 • Country: USA • Director: David Lowery • Main cast: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, McColm Cephas Jr. • Runtime: 92 minutes • Production company: Sailor Bear, Zero Trans Fat Productions, Ideaman Studios • TRAILER |
One of the riskiest films I’ve seen lately, A Ghost Story (2017) is an unconventional ghost story. Don’t expect it to be scary, or to make you jump from your sofa. It’s not about fear because it’s not from our point of view, but from a ghost perspective. Awarded for Best Cinematography and for Best Film in the Carnet Jove Jury at the 50th Sitges Film Festival, it will give a lot to speak.
Writer and director David Lowery come with an original proposal about loss. Original because it takes many different references, mostly from Asian cinema, and revisits them in an American movie, with actors such as Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, who have worked for movies which targeted much bigger audiences. When I came to the cinema theatre I certainly didn’t expect to see what I was about to see. And about loss, because “A Ghost Story is ultimately about a character learning that he needs to let go.” And that’s a very hard thing to learn. And Lowery manages to put it there, all those complicated feelings, that are so hard to talk about, he manages by means of the cinema (that language made not only with sound or words, but with images) he manages to make us think about that, and ultimately for those who can, to feel it deep inside. He talks about permanence, about legacy, about the observation of time and life, and above all about humans. As an interesting information, Lowery was co-editor of the film Upstream Color (2013), by Shane Carruth, and saving all distances with this his most recent film, it will not be that far away from the meticulous work of art that we found on the sci-fi story.
With openly recognizable references like Spirited Away (2001), Under the Skin (2013), or ‘Goodbye Dragon Inn‘ (2003), he surprises with this timeless story, shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio which adds a special-old feeling to it. About this last reference director Lowery, he says: “Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) has the trademark long takes that really are the signature of Tsai Ming-Liang’s films. The way in which these extremely extended takes can manifest humor, sadness, slapstick, and mystery really was more pronounced in this film than in any of his others that I’d seen prior to that”. And, those who have seen this film will already know, you’ve got to come a bit prepared to watch such a movie, but once you’ve seen it, I don’t believe you ever forget about it.
Time; limited or endless, priceless yet a gift, the cure of all sorrows…? Life; just a story, mundane, a succession of quotidian activities, yet our greatest chance for being remembered… A reflexion about the life cycle, and the relative importance that everything has.
RATE: 7/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6265828
