Tropic Sprockets / A Ghost Story

Tropic Sprockets / A Ghost Story 

By Ian Brockway

The director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) has crafted a very striking and poetic interpretation of a supernatural tale in a film that teases by its generic title  “A Ghost Story.” The narrative is very much about ghosts, yet rather than physical scares, this story trades on thoughts, feelings, longing and poignance. All of these human  qualities are what make the idea of ghosts so compelling, from the scary to the spiritual.

A self-involved musician, named C (Casey Affleck) moves in a house with wife M (Rooney Mara) where they begin to argue. M wants to move and C wants to stay put. One day C gets into a car crash and dies. Alone on the morgue slab, he rises taking on the aspect of a Halloween costume, a sheet with two black holes for eyes.

While at first this might appear quite silly, it is acutely moving and melancholy. The ghost moves about watching people go about their hospital activities. All seems alien and robotic. The ghost’s bedsheet appearance is perhaps a last ditch effort for C to try for levity and self-deprecation as he was so self absorbed in life. No one notices him and he drifts about, finally occupying the house.

This is a story of atmosphere and feeling rather than paranormal activity but it is no less affecting. The ghost watches M in her daily routine in an endless loop, and one imagines the haunt of leave-taking, exits, separations and emotional barriers.There is one especially vivid scene where M listens to C’s song (I Get Overwhelmed, performed by Dark Rooms) and her hand extends touching the edge of C’s form. She seems to feel something, but any spatial contact remains unclear and M is back in the silent material realm. 

Another excellent scene occurs with the actor Will Oldham rambling on at a party about the impermanence and folly of any human endeavor, from the artistic to the mundane. The scene is laugh out loud funny: During the height of Oldham’s nihilistic lecture, the ghost offers a barely perceptible movement of his head. Time and again, C tries to affect change and he is only successful when he confronts children. When he does induce chaos by smashing dishes and housewares, the new occupants timidly accept the disturbance and attempt to carry on as before. No exorcists necessary.

Comical and very human it is to see C patiently scrape at a hidden note embedded in the door trim of the house, either oblivious to or in defiance of some scorchingly loud bulldozers.

While Shirley Jackson saw houses as living entities, the architectural theorist Anthony Vidler once wrote of  houses being “unhomely or “unhealthy” having “the weight of tradition and the imbrications of generations of family drama” and there is something of that here. At one point, M asks C why he likes the house. “History,” he replies.

Above all else, “A Ghost Story”  is an unusual and daring film, not for any shocks embodied within, but for the fact that this story illustrates what it might feel like to be an actual ghost and it is a startlingly thoughtful experience.