Ghost World, the current Terry Zwigoff (director of Crumb) release starring Thora Birch (American Beauty), Steve Buscemi (Fargo and Trees Lounge) and Scarlett Johansson (The Horse Whisperer, The Man Who Wasn't There, An American Rhapsody) works as a solid, creative effort standing in bas relief to the year's worst drech that Hollywood has inflicted on the movie-going public in my memory.
Instead, we have a closely observed poignant satire that introduces a steady progression of grotesques while treating its protagonists with affection and respect. Both Thora Birch's and Steve Buscemi's characters are alienated and isolated; Birch's Enid searches restlessly for a sense of connection, while Buscemi's Seymour has virtually abandoned the attempt. In the course of the film, each tries to reach the other in mutually clumsy attempts at navigating the treacherous currents toward honest and intimate relating.
Much contributes to Enid's anomie. A loss of mother (unexplained), a detached and frightened father, graduation from high school, and a fear of additional abandonment and betrayal causes this pre-coming of age teen to wield a chrome plated shield to protect a fragile heart. So, Enid dresses up in stylized straight black hair and kitch glasses, much as the world around her clothes itself in unsubstantial style and protective pretense in absence of a reality to feed on.
Instead, she finds school mate and friend Rebecca, comrade in arms, as they symbiotically life-raft their way life through waters polluted with the daily dumping of absurdity. I'm reminded of the Coleridge line, "Poetry that excites us to artificial feelings makes us callous to real ones." Enid's central question concerns whether poetry in her world might even exist. Still, they graduate from high school, and make plans....they will get an apartment together, each will find work, and they will find a way to make their lives work. But how to do that without becoming the absurdity that they have hitherto resisted confronts them with the power of the unspoken question.
Meanwhile, through a cruel ruse, they meet Seymour, a man in his 40s, who has an equally symbiotic relationship not with another person, but with his records and memorabilia. Eventually, Enid and Seymour begin to explore relationship choices that offer the promise to move from socially appropriate artificiality to a beyond-the-box mutual grappling with the fears of actually getting close. Despite the seemingly dour and ironic tone, the film grasps an underlying romantic sensibility, and never lets go.
And the visual style is evocative and inventive. It's fascinating the way Zwigoff and the cinematographer are able to visually capture the sense of distance and alienation that the characters are experiencing. Most interestingly, none of the two shots are really two shots. For example, toward the beginning, there is a scene where father and Enid eat breakfast: each face the other on opposite sides of the shot, but the tv occupies the center, and displays the most activity in the scene. A bit later, Rebecca and Enid are eating on opposite sides of a restaurant table, and the jukebox sits in the center of the shot, emitting music. This shot construction becomes the pattern for the entire film, until a key scene toward the end involving Seymour and Enid, which changes the visual tone for the rest of the film. The ending itself, involving a minor character, serves as an elegant (almost.....dare I say....sentimental) coda to a most unusual and rewarding film.
*** 1/2 from me.
Now showing at the Naro theater in Norfolk.
Instead, we have a closely observed poignant satire that introduces a steady progression of grotesques while treating its protagonists with affection and respect. Both Thora Birch's and Steve Buscemi's characters are alienated and isolated; Birch's Enid searches restlessly for a sense of connection, while Buscemi's Seymour has virtually abandoned the attempt. In the course of the film, each tries to reach the other in mutually clumsy attempts at navigating the treacherous currents toward honest and intimate relating.
Much contributes to Enid's anomie. A loss of mother (unexplained), a detached and frightened father, graduation from high school, and a fear of additional abandonment and betrayal causes this pre-coming of age teen to wield a chrome plated shield to protect a fragile heart. So, Enid dresses up in stylized straight black hair and kitch glasses, much as the world around her clothes itself in unsubstantial style and protective pretense in absence of a reality to feed on.
Instead, she finds school mate and friend Rebecca, comrade in arms, as they symbiotically life-raft their way life through waters polluted with the daily dumping of absurdity. I'm reminded of the Coleridge line, "Poetry that excites us to artificial feelings makes us callous to real ones." Enid's central question concerns whether poetry in her world might even exist. Still, they graduate from high school, and make plans....they will get an apartment together, each will find work, and they will find a way to make their lives work. But how to do that without becoming the absurdity that they have hitherto resisted confronts them with the power of the unspoken question.
Meanwhile, through a cruel ruse, they meet Seymour, a man in his 40s, who has an equally symbiotic relationship not with another person, but with his records and memorabilia. Eventually, Enid and Seymour begin to explore relationship choices that offer the promise to move from socially appropriate artificiality to a beyond-the-box mutual grappling with the fears of actually getting close. Despite the seemingly dour and ironic tone, the film grasps an underlying romantic sensibility, and never lets go.
And the visual style is evocative and inventive. It's fascinating the way Zwigoff and the cinematographer are able to visually capture the sense of distance and alienation that the characters are experiencing. Most interestingly, none of the two shots are really two shots. For example, toward the beginning, there is a scene where father and Enid eat breakfast: each face the other on opposite sides of the shot, but the tv occupies the center, and displays the most activity in the scene. A bit later, Rebecca and Enid are eating on opposite sides of a restaurant table, and the jukebox sits in the center of the shot, emitting music. This shot construction becomes the pattern for the entire film, until a key scene toward the end involving Seymour and Enid, which changes the visual tone for the rest of the film. The ending itself, involving a minor character, serves as an elegant (almost.....dare I say....sentimental) coda to a most unusual and rewarding film.
*** 1/2 from me.
Now showing at the Naro theater in Norfolk.