Texas filmmaker David Lowery has reteamed with his Ain't Them Body Saints co-stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck for a stripped-down yet haunting (while a little silly) film in the fittingly titled A Ghost Story. It's a simply told yet abstract and wondrously bold cinematic encapsulation of grief, sadness, time, and existential life.
Mara and Affleck, credited only as "M" and "C", play a couple in which the latter dies and returns as a white-sheeted "ghost" with two cut-out eye holes, following her literally and metaphorically as she slowly grieves. What follows is a slow, methodical rumination on the nature of living framed through the entire history of the rural Texas home they shared.
One of the most talked-about scenes features Mara stress-eating an entire pie (her first ever, evidently) in a long, nearly unbroken take, which is a bizarrely compelling portrait of an emotional meltdown. Framed in the 4:3 boxed-off Academy ratio, Lowery uses portrait-style framing to further evoke his eerie mood in this and most of the slow, long takes that comprise the sparse but heavy film.
A Ghost Story is a daring and moving portrait of existential themes wrapped in a story about grief. Mara and Affleck are excellent and emotionally arresting as Lowery ambitiously executes his cinematic mood piece through small-scale but entirely inventive filmmaking.
More | YVArcade / FSR / ScreenCrush
0 reactions:
Post a Comment