I wondered beforehand whether I might've built this one up too much in anticipation, but I needn't have worried; after all, A Ghost Story is, indeed, all that.
The conceit works, Casey Affleck's white-sheeted ghost never seemingly like a simple metaphor or stand-in for anything in particular, nor (in whatever sense) like it's possessed - haha - of any straightforward subjectivity, but rather inhabiting a kind of in-between space. (Even the language that's most readily available for describing a movie about a ghost is revealing.)
The choice to shoot it in a squareish ratio (4:3) with rounded corners adds to the unmooring effect, while the soundtrack provides some graceful emotional navigational points, both overtly diegetic - especially the use of Dark Rooms' "I Get Overwhelmed", which had already wound its way under my skin from its use in the trailer - and more atmospherically, especially in a film that's very light on for dialogue (except for a jarring extended monologue about the meaninglessness of existence delivered by Will Oldham around midway through ... was he meant to be super annoying maybe?).
I liked the way that the cutting created elisions in time to suggest that the ghost experiences time differently from those alive - a suggestion which makes a different kind of sense come the film's final circle. It also brings even more into focus the long, still shots which, even in their own right, would already have forced a kind of contemplation of the screen in a way that I'm more used to doing with video art than movies - most memorably, the several minutes in which Rooney Mara joylessly eats a pie (possibly thankfully, the shot of paint literally drying is much briefer). And I also liked the little motif of notes left in cracks (or under stones, as the case may be), to pass in time.
So yes, A Ghost Story is very good. I do think that ghosts are having a cultural moment just now and this film really nails many of the best things about that.
The conceit works, Casey Affleck's white-sheeted ghost never seemingly like a simple metaphor or stand-in for anything in particular, nor (in whatever sense) like it's possessed - haha - of any straightforward subjectivity, but rather inhabiting a kind of in-between space. (Even the language that's most readily available for describing a movie about a ghost is revealing.)
The choice to shoot it in a squareish ratio (4:3) with rounded corners adds to the unmooring effect, while the soundtrack provides some graceful emotional navigational points, both overtly diegetic - especially the use of Dark Rooms' "I Get Overwhelmed", which had already wound its way under my skin from its use in the trailer - and more atmospherically, especially in a film that's very light on for dialogue (except for a jarring extended monologue about the meaninglessness of existence delivered by Will Oldham around midway through ... was he meant to be super annoying maybe?).
I liked the way that the cutting created elisions in time to suggest that the ghost experiences time differently from those alive - a suggestion which makes a different kind of sense come the film's final circle. It also brings even more into focus the long, still shots which, even in their own right, would already have forced a kind of contemplation of the screen in a way that I'm more used to doing with video art than movies - most memorably, the several minutes in which Rooney Mara joylessly eats a pie (possibly thankfully, the shot of paint literally drying is much briefer). And I also liked the little motif of notes left in cracks (or under stones, as the case may be), to pass in time.
So yes, A Ghost Story is very good. I do think that ghosts are having a cultural moment just now and this film really nails many of the best things about that.
