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David Lowery (USA, 1980)
debuted with St Nick (2009).
Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)
A Ghost Story (2017) is a frustrating horror movie. It feels unfinished in multiple places. A modern woman hides notes in every houses where she lives
and two centuries earlier a little girl buried a note under a stone where that house will be built, but there no connection between the two is offered.
We never get to read the note that the woman buried in the house and that the ghost spent decades trying to read, something that may not be important in another kind of story but in this kind of story feels important.
The story also feels more implausible than ghost stories normally are.
For example, the ghost walks from the morgue back to his house but then it is trapped forever in that house.
There are scenes that should last two seconds and last an eternity: we see the woman eat a pie for many minutes, a pointless scene which is simply an excruciating waste of time. On the other hand, the second half moves quickly between decades and centuries.
At the beginning it is hard to take the film seriously: the ghost wears a white sheet like in the old black-and-white movies and it feels like a parody.
On the other hand, the story could have been interesting: the ghost is stuck in a time loop until he finally reads his wifes note, and then it has accomplished his mission of knowing the truth and vanishes. But of course we wonder if he has been annihilated by the truth (for example that she hated that house and her marriage) or liberated to a higher dimension by the knowledge that she loved him.
In other words: there is an intriguing philosophical film inside this film but unfortunately the director can't figure it out. And just when we realize that there's more than a time loop (the ghost sees another ghost of himself) the director doesn't know how to continue the story and abruptly ends the film.
An unnamed man and an unnamed woman (presumably husband and wife) live in a suburban home, which he loves and she hates. She mentions that she has left a note hidden in every house she's ever lived in. One night they hear a loud noise as if something fell on their piano, but there's nobody in the house. They go back to sleep. The man is killed in a car accident. We see her eating a pie (a long excruciating scene) and vomiting, but never crying. The man has followed her back into the house: he has become a ghost (comically dressed in a white sheet). Days go by and finally the woman has a new boyfriend. Meanwhile, the ghost has realized that there is a ghost in the house across the street. They communicate without speaking. The other ghost says that he is waiting for someone. Our ghost asks "for whom?" and the other ghost replies "I don't know". The ghost sees the woman write a little note and leave it inside a wall. The woman moves out and a new family moves in. The ghost is irritated and scares the family away. He starts scratching the wall to recover the note that her ex left. A new family moves in and throws a party. We listen to a long speech by one of the partygoer who explains that everything is pointless because eventually everybody has to die and the whole universe will one day collapse. Years go by. The house is now dilapidated. The ghost is still scratching the wall and finally manages to pull out the woman's note but just then a bulldozer tears down the house as well as the house next door. The ghost and the other ghost are left standing among the ruins. The other ghost silently says "I dont think theyre coming" and vanishes. Years go by and a skyscraper is being built. The ghost wanders through the floors. One day the building is finished and people are about their business. The ghost stares at the cityscape, which has changed dramatically: instead of the rural suburbia of his time, there are now high-rise buildings everywhere. The ghost jumps from the roof to his second deaths. He is thrown back in time to the pioneer time, when a family settles in that area and decides to build a home. A little girl hums the woman's favorite song that we heard before and hides a note under a rock. The family is killed by "Indians" but the home survives and after several generations it becomes what the man and the woman purchased. Now the ghost sees himself and his wife enter the house. He re-lives his own life in that house until the day of his death. We see that the noise that woke them up the night before was caused by the ghost, i.e. by himself after his death. The ghost can now see the ghost of his second death staring at his wife as she leaves the house. The ghost finally reads the note left by the woman and then vanishes.
Pete's Dragon (2016) was a remake of a Walt Disney movie.
The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
The Green Knight (2021) is an adaptation of
the 14th-century poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."
Slow and overlong, the film is a visual delight but little else.
The story is trivial and told with simplicity.
The ending redeems what is otherwise a pretty dull experience.
In the distance we see a windmill on fire. The camera walks backwards into
a home and shows Gawain asleep.
It is Christmas and we are in a brothel.
Gawain parts from his girlfriend Essel and rides to his palace in Camelot
where his mother scolds him for smelling like a drunk and spending the night out.
When Gawain leaves, we see his mother perform a magic ritual and she stares into
the camera with an anxious look.
Gawain joins a party at the Round Table with his uncle King Arthur.
Summoned by the magic of Gawain's mother, a Green Knight rides in,
interrupting Arthur's speech to his knights.
Without saying a word, he delivers a letter to Arthur.
The letter proposes a game with the knights: if a knight can land a blow on
the Green Knight, such a knight will have to meet the Green Knight in one
year and receive the same kind of blow by the Green Knight.
Gawain is the only one who volunteers.
Arthur hands his sword, Excalibur, to
Gawain, and, with it, Gawain beheads the Green Knight, who doesn't even try
to avoid the blow and instead offers the neck.
The beheaded Knight picks up his severed head and gives Gawain an appointment
in one year time, when he will return the blow in kind.
Almost one year later, we see a puppet show for children reenacting Gawain's feat while Gawain is in bed with Essel.
Arthur reminds Gawain of the covenant that must be fulfilled on Christmas.
A group of women led by his mother make a green girdle and
a priest blesses a green axe. His mother tells him that the girdle will
protect him.
On the way to the meeting place, the Green Chapel,
Gawain stumbles on a battlefield littered with dead bodies.
The only living being is a boy who starts a conversation and then gives him
directions. Gawain follows his directions only to be ambushed precisely by
this kid and his friends.
A terrified Gawain begs for his life. They
steal his axe, his girdle and his horse.
There is a skeleton nearby, a sign that they have used that trick before.
Gawain runs through the forest until dark.
Then he looks for shelter in an abandoned shack by a lake.
The ghost of a young woman, Winifred, appears
and leads him back into the forest, to a pond, where her head lies.
She tells him that a lord tried to rape her and, when she resisted him,
he beheaded her. She asks him to retrieve her head. Gawain demands a reward.
He dives in the pond, finds the skull at the bottom, swims back up, and
finds a fox where the ghost was.
Inside the house he finds the skeleton of the woman in the bed and places
the skull on the pillow. The skull turns into a living head and tells him that
the Green Knight is someone he knows.
His green axe reappears. He resumes his journey on foot.
The fox follows him.
He survives on berries.
Feverish, he has hallucinations, notably some
giant naked mute women emerging from the mist.
Finally he sees a light and reaches a castle.
Its lord welcomes him as if he knew that he was coming.
In fact, the lord knows his name, and knows why he's there,
but doesn't explain how.
The lord introduces him to his wife (played by the same actress who plays Essel).
They sit at a table with a blindfolded old woman who doesn't speak.
The lord tells him that the Green Chapel is nearby and invites him to stay until
Christmas' Eve.
The beautiful lady, always followed by the blindfolded woman,
gives him a gift: a book. She demands a kiss in return.
She offers to make a portrait of him, which she makes instantly but it's
upside down.
She removes from his neck the amulet that Essel gave him.
The lord asks him to play a strange game: the lord will give Gawain everything that
he catches hunting and Gawain in return will give the lord anything he
receives in the castle that doesn't already belong to the lord.
The old blindfolded woman touches Gawain's forehead but doesn't say anything,
and walks away like a ghost.
While the lord is out hunting, the lady walks into Gawain's room and offers
herself to him after giving him the green girdle, claiming that she made it,
and repeating her mother's admonition that he will be safe as long as he
wears it.
Suddenly Gawain realizes that the old blindfolded woman has been there all
the time and, scared, flees the castle.
In the forest he meets the lord, who demands that he fulfills their game: he
has to give the lord whatever he receives in the castle that didn't belong
to the lord already... the girdle.
Gawain pretends that he has nothing to give him.
The lord has captured the fox but releases it.
The fox suddenly tries to stop Gawain from boarding a boat to cross a river
and speaks with human voice begging Gawain to give up his quest and return
home. The Green Chapel is on the other side of the river and
the Green Knight is already there but is like frozen.
He wakes up the following morning, Christmas Day, grabs an axe, tells Gawain
to kneel, and lifts the axe to behead Gawain, but Gawain is a coward and
runs away. He finds his horse and rides back to Camelot.
His mother washes his back, Essel makes tender love to him.
Now the story accelerates: years go by in a few minutes.
Arthur is dying and makes Gawain the new king.
Essel gives birth to Gawain's son, but Gawain leaves her and she crawls in
vain after him. Gawain takes the son with him and marries an aristocrat.
His son grows up and is killed in battle.
The people come to hate Gawain.
His new wife gives him a daughter.
Rebels surround and attack the castle.
Both his wife and his mother abandon him.
As the rebels break into the gate and are about to kill him,
disappointed by life, Gawain removes the green girdle.
Instantly, his head detouches and rolls down.
It was all a vision: he is still kneeling and the Green Knight still has to
behead him. Gawain removes the
girdle and tells the Green Knight that he is ready.
The Green Knight thinks that Gawain is courageous when in reality
Gawain is ready because he doesn't want to live the life that he has seen
in his vision.
(Copyright © 2020 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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