We are no more eternal than our own footprints.
A spectral romance melded into a reflection upon mortality, David Lowrey’s A Ghost Story conjures a cosmic journey within a few hundred square feet. The film garnered acclaim (and criticism) for its statuesque illustration of grief, frustration, and melancholy all at contemplative pace. Lowery often lingers in moments, relishing in the tonal potency a frame could provide. The director is so concerned with this exercise, he forgoes one of the most instinctual, technical concepts of modern filmmaking: a 16:9 ratio. Honing is lens so delicately and specifically, Lowery excavates not only the memories of a life lost but those of a lived-in space via a trek through time. In doing so, Lowery considers the span of human perseverance and the value of the pieces we leave behind.
The film establishes its geographical concern with little hesitation. “C” (Casey Affleck) and “M” (Rooney Mara) are on the verge of a move, yet the former who can do little to will himself towards change desperately seeks to shift their scenery. While C oscillates and anchors himself during the development of a seemingly aimless song, M is seen dragging scraps of their time there to the curb. As their contention approaches its breaking point, however, a resolution is decided for them: C is struck and killed while pulling out of their driveway. In a rare moment of departure, the character suffers the ultimate consequence. Not only is his influence seemingly eviscerated, but so too his agency. Upon his rebirth as a spirit, C finds himself bound to his final home. Cursed to remain tethered to a space, he can only observe what happens there indefinitely.
The ghost slowly and tragically grows to personify the house. Though nonetheless painful, C is weened into this newfound existence. While M struggles to cope with the abrupt loss, her partner is futile in his attempts to offer. Upon M’s inevitable migration, C is imprisoned within the cage of a window’s panes, gradually erased by the shadows of a vacant home. His only hope lies in the form of a note scribbled upon a small note left by M in the crevice of a doorframe. Reluctant to come to terms with his newfound purgatory, C struggles to claw out the remnant of M to no avail. The specter quickly realizes he cannot simply perpetuate in this endeavor as space, too, must endure a journey.
Unlike C during the fleeting moments of his life, the house, and by extension the space it occupies, are vehicles of change. As time moves forward, years are condensed into seconds much to C’s chagrin. A small family is the immediate successor to M, replacing virtually any sign of the prior couple’s presence, save a degenerating piano and, of course, the note embedded within the door frame. C’s frustration build as the family not only replaces the apparent evidence of his presence but also usurps him. The mother’s children serve as a constant reminder to C of a phase of life he never had the opportunity to reach. After detecting C’s presence through initially small, physical manifestations of his frustration, the young boy levels his toy gun in the ghost’s direction; this action serves as a warning, posting C’s interference in the lives of the space’s new inhabitants will only perpetuate his ire and further distance him from closure.
C is nonetheless desperate in his attempts to hold even a minute impact on reality, haunting the family’s presence and ultimately chasing them away from the home. Though he may be able to smash a few dishes, the trajectory of the space will not be influenced by C’s outbursts. In a moment, the home is converted into a party house and pushed even further from its state under M and C’s care. The specter watches parents, lovers and loners alike revel in his former space, uncertain whether he should feel violated or apathetic. In a rather rigid yet defining scene, a drunken philosopher (Will Oldham) describes the urge to leave something behind, like art, to somehow ensure our existence beyond death. The speech, though exhaustive and even misogynistic in its summary of nihilism and the sliver of optimism embedded within the ideology, reminds C of his own attempt at perseverance. Perhaps saved on a hard drive long recycled or somehow echoed in a piano now out-of-tune and desecrated by a mountain of beer cans, lay C’s unfinished song.
Unclear whether the piece would leverage C’s musical career, it does indicate he too, like M, has left a piece of himself behind. The track itself, “I Get Overwhelmed” by Dark Rooms, mimics the development of a space through time. Beginning with a wispy tone trailed by a ghostly reverb, the piece slowly incorporates more instrumentation and lyrics, never losing any sign of its original foundation until achieving an appropriately overwhelming climax. So too is the journey of the space through time. Though from an individual’s perspective it may appear one might dictate the composition of a home, Lowery contends it is, in fact, the state that indiscriminately assimilates pieces of us.
What we leave behind is never stored within a vacuum; space is an intertextual incubator for something far less isolated. After a party subsides, the dilapidated house is torn down, reconfigured beyond recognition into a skyscraper. Against all logic yet with no other option, C hurls himself from the top of the tower, emerging in the same space, albeit centuries before he and M, as well as the house. Still struggling to piece together the purpose of his purgatory, the ghost witnesses a young girl playing outside a covered wagon, most notably humming the approximate melody of “I Get Overwhelmed” for a few brief seconds. Moments later the girl’s family is sacked, and C watches as her corpse gradually dissolves into the Earth before he finds himself staring into his own carpet. C, at this juncture, the young girl’s offhanded hymn cascaded into a symphony that permeated his final endeavor.
Perhaps unintentionally, Lowery suggests bylines, accreditation, even a life’s work, is never really possessed by an entity, but rather a conglomeration of all action prior and events yet to come. C’s consciousness is not released from the cycle until he relinquishes his attachment to the notion of legacy, a revelation illuminated as he is finally able to dig out M’s note from the doorframe. Instantly dissolving into air C moves on, whereas a space endures, a harbor for everything that has and will transpire within.
In retrospect, an individual’s impact seems temporary and even futile. The memorials of ourselves grow warped, faded and unrecognizable. However, within this metamorphosis lies a thread never lost, but continually woven.
Did you find this essay on A Ghost Story, a film about our purpose within the vastness of time and space, intriguing? Consider donating to Planet Thunder Productions’ own take on time traveling, SHIFTER, through Indiegogo.
