Ghosted

Ghosted is one of those bad movies where throughout most of the film I just kept asking, what is the point of this movie?

The film is about Sophie, a German artist mourning the death of her lover, Ai-Ling. Much of the film is flashback depicting their relationship and Ai-Ling’s life leading up to the day of her death. In the present, Sophie meets with Mei-li. Mei-li says she is a reporter and wants to do a profile on Sophie. Sophie declines but Mei-li continues to pursue her and expresses an interest in her. However, Sophie realizes Mei-li is not being honest with her about even her identity. Mei-li’s interest in her largely stems from her investigation to find out what happened to Ai-Ling.

You can tell director Monika Treut came up in underground films of the 90’s because that’s what the film looks like. It’s largely handheld and of low camera quality. I’m personally not a fan of this minimalist, cinema verite/dogma style. I have seen films done in such a style that I’ve liked but hearing that a film is in such a category is never going to be a bonus for me.

The big issue with Ghosted is that it never seemed to focus on the most interesting point of the story. Because there is interesting stuff in this film but it largely takes the back burner to other pointless, uninteresting stuff. This film should be a mystery. But there’s more focus and time spent on depicting Mei-li’s relationship with Sophie than her actually exploring of said mystery. The film also focuses a lot on Ai-Ling. The problem here is that we know she’s dead so it’s an uphill battle to care about this character and her problems.

And the mystery itself resolves very poorly. No foul play was committed, it was a tragic traffic accident where Ai-Ling walked into the road and got hit by a car. I don’t even understand why foul play was suspected. I certainly don’t understand why Mei-li suspected Sophie when Sophie had a pretty solid alibi of not being in the city at the time. On top of all of this, the mystery is “solved” because Mei-li has a dream about it. A dream isn’t evidence! As a viewer I can accept that her dream is true but why did Mei-li accept the events in her dreams being absolute fact? Does she have a history of psychic dreams? Is this just another interesting thing the movie chose not to focus on?

Ghosted is also iffy on themes. I don’t know what this movie is “about”. There are lots of ways this story could be used to explore concepts. These include cultural differences and cross cultural romance, mourning a dead lover, the whole murder mystery thing or just queerness. Ghosted chooses not to really focus on any of them. The most prominent are the mystery aspects and Sophie mourning her deceased lover. But even these two themes battle each other and I’m still wondering is the film supposed to be primarily a mystery or tragedy. As it is, it’s not really either.

Ghosted is just a bunch of nothing. There’s no edge and nothing subversive or challenging to it, nor is there any emotion and well-explored themes. It just sort of exists. The film’s lack of focus makes it feel amateur despite it being made by someone with decades’ of experience. I still don’t understand why this movie exists. What is the point of Ghosted? Whatever it is, that point didn’t translate into the finished product at all.

Overall rating: 3.8/10

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