Synopsis
Shelia, a single mom and sometime paranormal investigator, is enlisted to investigate a possible “haunting” at a widower’s farmhouse in East Tennessee.
2019 Directed by Paul Harrill
Shelia, a single mom and sometime paranormal investigator, is enlisted to investigate a possible “haunting” at a widower’s farmhouse in East Tennessee.
Elisabeth Moss Tim Headington Kelly Williams James M. Johnston Toby Halbrooks Amy Leigh Hubbard Theresa Page Michael Mobley
A very minimal but still haunting ghost story. But the haunting is less of a real ghost and more just the lingering of lost that we all have to endure sometime in life.
If anything supernatural actually happens in this movie is probably up for interpretation, but ultimately it's more about closure. And much like how they say funerals are for the living, not the dead, that feeling of closure is the same. Making the reading of what's supernatural in this both debatable and moot.
A Ghost Story cinematic universe confirmed, or: just because Jim Gaffigan’s character didn’t eat an entire pie onscreen during Light From Light, that doesn’t mean Jim Gaffigan’s character didn’t eat an entire pie offscreen during Light From Light.
The central question of Paul Harrill’s gentle chiller Light from Light is the same one ghost stories have been asking for centuries: is the house haunted? Richard (Jim Gaffigan), who’s begun experiencing strange phenomena since his wife passed away in a plane crash, suspects it may be. Shelia (Marin Ireland), who works a normal desk job during the day and moonlights as a paranormal researcher, has her doubts. But by the time we arrive at an answer, both we and the film have almost forgotten it was ever asked to begin with.
This is because, at first glance, the focus of the film is on more ordinary matters. Classifying Light from Light within a specific genre, however reductive, will inevitably…
Marin Ireland was great in this film. It's not a full-fledged horror film, but it's spooky and atmospheric. Definitely recommended.
Watched on: MUBI
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I knew nothing of this film when it showed up the other day as MUBI featured selection, but I wound up liking it very much. A "small" film, it's set in rural Tennessee, it focuses on a clairvoyant single mom who helps a widower who thinks his wife's ghost is communicating to him in the home they shared. One might expect a horror storyline with its emphasis on a paranormal investigation. But it's really about loneliness, loss, ambivalence about connection, and inner doubts. Very nicely done.
There's a few threads through which writer/director Paul Harrill explores these themes - Sheila, a single mom working as a car rental clerk - who's bitter over past loves, doubting both her skills and…
If the jump scares and horror set pieces of Paranormal Activity or The Conjuring franchises were exchanged for an authentic reckoning of the tangled emotions the departed may leave behind, you have something close to Light From Light. There’s a palpable tension to this story of paranormal investigating, but rather than injecting the expected terror, the film’s power lies in never seeing ghost hunting depicted so grounded and character-driven before. This is the kind of film where the minutiae of insurance policies are discussed before any haunting may begin. Those going into Paul Harrill’s second feature looking for frights will be rewarded with something more substantial: an experience rich with atmosphere and humanity, and drama ultimately more enlightening than the cheap thrills that pervade the dime-a-dozen ghost stories we’ve seen before.
Upon a second viewing, even knowing where the film was headed and in full anticipation of *that scene*, I was still emotionally bowled over and left a blubbering mess in the best way. Harrill has done something truly magical here.
A HUNDRED UNSEEN HORRORS #7
***Disclaimer: Prime billed this as a Horror, but I should have confirmed with Google, where it just says "drama"... It's more accurately a drama with a twinge of supernatural elements, but I am still counting it!
It's a sweet little drama involving some coming of age, some jaded loss-of-faith, grief and regrets. The scenes where they are investigating the paranormal activity are eerie, probably moreso because they are so non-chalant about it, and it's happening mostly in the background.
Light From Light is a quiet, intimate ghost story, in which there may not, in fact, be a ghost. The movie centers on the relationship between a paranormal investigator named Shelia (Marin Ireland) and a grieving widower (Jim Gaffigan) who believes his late wife may be haunting his creaky farmhouse. Writer-director Paul Harrill stages a gripping early investigation sequence—in which Shelia wanders the home alone at night, asking any supernatural presence to make itself known—but otherwise the film largely consists of long conversation scenes that verge on the inert. (Gaffigan, who came to fame as a stand-up comedian, nearly equates seriousness with lifelessness.) Like A Ghost Story, though with less aplomb, Light From Light is less interested in things that go bump in the night than in things that trouble a grieving heart.
Light from Light is not what I expected; comparable indies are symbolically layered and often purposefully opaque—there’s nothing wrong with that as an artistic decision in theory, and I actually tend to love ambiguity when done right, but I won’t hesitate to say (a few) indie filmmakers have hidden behind that stylistic choice to pretentiously act like there’s some deep meaning or implicit theme when, truthfully, there’s none to be found.
In contrast, Harrill’s film here has no frills; it is visibly thematic without ever feeling cheap, unearned, or obvious. The final moments tie it all together, delicately landing in a place with confident certainty of eternity’s weight. In a word, it took my breath away. Light from Light is still tragically unseen—we all have time, go support this filmmaker.
Paul's a good friend so I won't rate or write about Light from Light, other than to say I've watched it two days in a row and will probably watch it again tonight because there's something about it I can't shake.
Roger Ebert rightfully proclaimed films as empathy machines, and as "empathy" has become more of a buzzword over the last decade, mainstream film criticism has been dominated by using empathy as a measure of quality. In some sense, this is warranted: cinema has the unique ability to fully immerse its viewers into the experiences of others with as much detail as possible. And yet, as the quest for empathy in cinema has expanded, precious few filmmakers have remembered that empathy without honesty rings as hollow as a rotting tree. One of those filmmakers is Paul Harrill, whose Light from Light is a tender, meek investigation of grief through the lens of a ghost story.
The film is certainly supernatural, but…