The Ghosts Are Calling is a most interesting piece in my barrage of movie watchings. Although “movie” isn’t really the right word – film. But not film as one might use to distinguish a fine movie like The Godfather from a fun flick like Point Break. It is more like a film piece one might find as a video art loop running at a little art gallery you stumbled upon by accident while wandering a metropolis for fun. Indeed, by accident is really how I found this film in the first place.
The Ghosts Are Calling is a film by Andrew Kidman and Eduardo Madera. Andrew Kidman is noted for his surf films Glass Love and Litmus. I’d been interested in seeing Glass Love and was watching the trailer on The Surf Network when I noticed Ghosts under the “More movies from this producer” header. I watched the trailer for Ghosts and my interest was piqued. Then I saw the price – $6.99. And I thought, “Well, Hells Bells. For $7, I’ll give this a try.”
In a word – superb. I was really blown away by this film. The pace, soundtrack and visuals all flowed so well. Right off the bat, the titles tell the viewer this is “A collage by Eduardo Madera and Andrew Kidman.” Surf film often substitute “a film by” with a funny or snarky phrase to set the tone of the movie, but I’ve never seen “collage” before. But “collage” is a great way to describe the film.
Then the film opens with animation, live action, treated film and surf shots blending in and out of each other. The soundtrack leads in with a light tune, but later drifts into a gritty, heavy, pulpy jam. The visuals and audio start blending in interviews and spoken word. And so goes the ebb and flow of this film until the end sequence where the viewer is rewarded with series of zany antics by to hilarious hair band wanna-bes, always clutching their talls, who play out the film.
When it was all played out I just sat there for a moment processing the whole thing. As I always do, I went to the Internets for some answers, but brother, there are none to be found. As far as the Web is concerned, this film barely exists. So I watched it again…and it was still awesome and mysterious and intriguing and wonderfully baffling.
So worth $7! Full shakas. Please watch it. Tell me if it’s crazy entertaining or if I was just up too late.
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