A Ghost Story

*"I'm waiting for someone." "Who?" "I don't remember."* Life is strange. Time is fleeting. Feelings disappear. Spaces on Earth become tethered memories for us. Tastes, smells, sounds - all tangible emotional links to the physical world. And relationships are the intangible. The things that don't have any physicality, but still persevere. In fact, relationships, and love, are forces and experiences that define and shape almost all of us. All of our art, all of our expressions, all of our actions - they're all embedded in love, whether it be familial or platonic or romantic. A Ghost Story is a story about life. It's a story about time. And feelings. And spaces. Casey Affleck is a musician living with his girlfriend in a small bungalow. They're not doing too well - she wants to move out and he wants to stay. She wants more from life, but he's content with his home. Their home. He argues that they have history there, but she disagrees. Soon after, he dies, and she finds herself in a distant and empty trance. Despite the flaws of their relationship, there was clear love. What she doesn't know is that his spirit left the hospital and returned to their home, wearing nothing but a bed-sheet with eye-holes cut out. She can't see him, she can't feel him, but he's there. He doesn't know why he's there, but he's there. Watching her. Trying to reach out, but he can't. The film traverses through decades, centuries, in fact - the entirety of time itself finds itself explored in the short runtime of A Ghost Story but it isn't overwhelming in any way. As Rooney Mara begins to move on, she writes something on a piece of paper and slots it in a small crack in the wall of their bungalow. Earlier, she mentioned to Affleck that she would always do this to keep a little part of herself in all of the places in her life. For some reason, the ghost knows this. He doesn't know why, but he has to see what that note says. And so begins a journey through time. It's difficult to describe this film. It's transient, slow, and beautiful. Using a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the cinematography is focused and intimate. The screen is constantly filled with visuals, even if it isn't busy at all. The curved corners of the frame make this feel more like an old home video than a film, which intensifies the intimacy even further. This was necessary, because we needed, as an audience, to be completely inside this film. This film is an enveloping experience of love and meditation and life and time, and it wouldn't work if we were in awe of the cinematography as a piece of cinema, instead of as an expression of feeling and art. Sometimes, shots take ten minutes to complete. A static shot of Rooney Mara eating a pie - now strangely infamous because people are ignorant about their interpretations of it - lasts for six minutes. In comparison, a single cut from one shot to another spans thousands of years. Time is meaningless in *A Ghost Story, as if the length of time doesn't matter as much as the emotional resonance of the characters involved. So, if the feelings that the Ghost experience can only be expressed through the passage of 1000 years, so be it. There's a reason Affleck thought they had history, and that's because his own spirit was standing right beside him as he said it. The ghost goes through time and then circles back, beginning at the beginning and starting again. Maybe this time the ghost can find the small piece of paper crunched up between a crack in the wall. It's a beautiful moment when the film circles back, and it's an emotionally satisfying experience. But that makes me sound like a robot. Let's be real here: this is the best film of 2017. This is one of the best films of the decade. This is an absolute masterpiece, and I bawled my eyes out watching it. Daniel Hart's score is phenomenal, so completely entwined between everything that happens on-screen that the two can't exist without each-other - his music is the life-blood of the film, and it flows in and out constantly, from a consistent hum to a louder crescendo of power. This all culminates, of course, in Hart's band's song that was written for the film, 'I Get Overwhelmed'. In the film, Casey Affleck is a musician, and he wrote a song for his girlfriend Rooney Mara. That song is 'I Get Overwhelmed', and not only is it a beautiful piece of music, but it's used to perfection here. Mara, after her boyfriend's untimely death, lies on the cold, hard-wood floor of their bungalow and listens to it. She gently slides her hand across the floor as she lies in grief-stricken contemplation. As her hand moves along the floor, it very gently, and very almost, touches the sheet of the ghost. But there's no touching, there are a few millimetres between them. She's listening to the music and remembering when she first heard it, and in her memory, the song is loud and grandiose. On the cold wooden floor, the music is quiet, muffled. This is what it's like to remember. This is what it's like to use your memories to compare your life from now and then. There's always a now and there's always a then, and we always find ourselves thinking of our thens when we're in our nows. Soon, our now will become a then, and I'm sure for the rest of her life this song will be hers, and will remind her not only of the first time, but also that time on the cold, hard floor. A Ghost Story* is undoubtedly a masterpiece, and I seriously hope it wins some Oscars. It won't get nominated, and that's a shame, but it damn deserves it. It's a masterpiece in visuals, sound, screenplay - everything. I'm in awe of this film. Absolute awe.