Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 5 July 2017
Review: ‘A Ghost Story’

casts a bizarre spell

By JAKE COYLE sheet. creasingly sad figure, even
AP Film Writer Lowery shot the film secretly without facial expression
A fatal, off-screen car crash in between making Disney — who’s haunted. When
interrupts the picturesque, movies: after directing the he looks out the window,
suburban lives of a young rebooted “Pete’s Dragon” he sees another ghost in
married couple in David and before developing a the neighboring house.
Lowery’s “A Ghost Story,” new “Peter Pan.” It was de- They communicate tele-
marooning the deceased signed like an audacious pathically, with subtitles for
husband musician (Casey indie experiment, made us mortals. It can’t even
This image released by A24 shows Casey Affleck in a scene Affleck) in a kind of purga- with little expectation of remember why it’s there.
from the film, “A Ghost Story.” tory as a watchful, mostly triumph, that reteamed Increasingly grand jumps
Associated Press benign ghost. the stars (Affleck, Mara) of through time follow, be-
The movie is, inevitably, Lowery’s lyrical outlaw ro- yond the house’s destruc-
“the one where Casey Af- mance “Ain’t Them Bodies tion and back to the pio-
fleck spends most of the Saints.” neer family who first rested
movie with a bedsheet And “A Ghost Story,” with there.
over his head.” With two fragmented scenes and The question at the center
holes for eyes, he resem- leaps through time, does of “A Ghost Story” is: What
bles a last-minute Hallow- have the electric feel of endures? And if nothing
een costume. Such a sim- something made off the ra- does, what’s it all for? The
ple, sheeted specter — as dar and without a net. The centerpiece scene, one of
Hollywood ghosts go — is early scenes between the the flashbacks, is a party
tantamount to a radical couple — known only as M at their house where one
deviation from prevailing (her) and C (him) — have friend (the actor and musi-
orthodoxy. There’s no CGI. a cosmic backdrop, inter- cian Will Oldham) delivers
Nobody gets slimed. A shirt- spersed with shots of the sky a dark and searing mono-
less Patrick Swayze doesn’t at night, the humming of a logue where he declares
make a single pot. quivering score of violins that everything you’ve
No, the most audacious and the lush sunlight of Tex- ever stood for, everything
display of cinematic ex- as golden hour. A strange you’ve made “will go.”
treme in “A Ghost Story” is noise wakes them at night, Children will die. The pages
a scene where the ghost and Lowery lingers on the of books will burn.
watches his widowed wife couple as they hold each “A Ghost Story” makes a
(Rooney Mara), in a fit of other in bed, kiss softly and gentle peace with its own
grief and hunger, eat pie. drift back to sleep. futility. It, too, will one day
For five minutes. But on a beautiful, buzzing perish, and it’s perhaps fit-
“A Ghost Story” may sound morning, we find the hus- ting to contemplate such
like a punchline. Such is band slumped against the inevitable ends at this par-
the curse of movies with wheel outside their home. ticular moviegoing mo-
covered-up movie stars In the morgue, Lowery ment — when cinema of-
and marathon pie-eating holds his shot on the body ten feels like a wayward
scenes. But it’s an exceed- after the wife and doctors ghost of itself.
ingly earnest, meditative depart. A few moments lat- It’s possible to admire “A
movie about big ideas — er, the sheet-covered body Ghost Story” for its pursuit of
the nature of time, life’s im- sits up, walks down the hall, something profound, while
permanence — that goes opts not to step into the being totally unmoved by
well beyond the intention- light, and meanders his it. Just as with “Ain’t Them
ally dime-store costume way home. Bodies Saints,” there’s a
design. It’s an often trans- His purpose is far from layer of calculated artifice
fixing, frequently unsatisfy- clear, even to himself. that is draped like a bed-
ing fable that blends the He patiently, stoically ob- sheet over the whole enter-
fantastical with the banal serves his wife’s grief. Time prise. Little of it hits with any
in a way that the naturalis- moves slowly and then in feeling, and the long pie-
tic/surrealistic Thai filmmak- giant leaps. She eventually eating (or not) shots only al-
er Apichatpong Weeres- moves out, but he stays. A low time to ponder the film-
ethakul might if someone family moves in. Years pass. maker’s designs, which are
were to hand him a bed- It’s the lost ghost — an in- always front and center.q

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