Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Up There


Two recently deceased men in limbo attempt to find a lost soul in this dark comedy from England. Stuck in a bureaucratic dead-end job welcoming the dead to the afterlife, these two men accidentally lose a 'runner'. Unfortunately, death means they can't interact with their physical surroundings, so they have to wait for the living to open doors for them so they can continue on their search. I really found this plot device to be quite intriguing. It very conveniently explains why ghosts haunt some particular place. The spirits are just waiting for the right door to open. However, this line of reasoning would have to suggest that supermarkets or malls would just be chock full of spirits stuck waiting to use the revolving doors, escalators, or elevators. They'd be just crammed full of ghosts. I'm not really sure they are, and if so, that would just be awful. That would be a hellish experience, just standing around Claire's Boutique amidst the clutter of inexpensive jewelry, blaring pop tunes and squealing pre-teen girls waiting for your chance to escape. Yikes.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the grey drudgery of the afterlife in Up There, with its stark, dreary interiors in need of sprucing up and endless paperwork. Up There was playing at the Cleveland International Film Festival, but you probably missed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp9vwJk0SLc

No comments:

Post a Comment