There seem to be precious few compelling ghost stories in movies anymore. Maybe the scares and the suspense have just lost their lustre, or filmmakers aren’t able to capture the concept in an interesting way. But perhaps the key is to re-contextualize our perspective. Ghost stories have been told and depicted on film the same way for decades. It may be telling that the two strongest ghost movies of the last decade have dared to convey their stories from the ghost’s point of view. The first was David Lowery’s impeccably evocative A Ghost Story. And the second is Presence.
Presence is the first supernatural thriller -bordering on horror film directed by Steven Soderbergh; but ever the technical filmmaker, it is very clear why he was drawn to it. Here is a ghost movie that never leaves the mysterious perspective of the ghost or ‘presence’ as it is ultimately referred to by the characters in the film. To Soderbergh, the curious filmmaking challenge presented by this conceit is as captivating as the haunting allure of the conceit itself. And that combination of his enthusiasm in practice, the technical skill of the piece, with some genuinely immersive story beats and directions courtesy of the film’s writer David Koepp, makes for an intimate ghost story more fresh and methodical than anything in years.
Confined to a single house, the layout of which the movie familiarizes us with easily, the ghost exists there in vacancy before a family moves in. From the spiritual vantage point, we observe the drama of mother Rebecca (Lucy Liu) engaged in some suspicious activity with her work and far too tolerant of the behaviour of her obnoxious and troublesome son Tyler (Eddy Maday), while father Chris (Chris Sullivan) attempts to enforce some discipline, pondering divorce, and standing up for the much ignored and belittled daughter Chloe (Callina Liang), who is in a depression since the apparent overdose death of her best friend Nadia and her sister. The ghost primarily resides in Chloe's room, paying her the most attention -lending credence to Chloe's suspicion once the paranormal activity starts, that it is the spirit of Nadia.
That paranormal activity is subtle for a while -in fact though the presence moves around the house in a series of elaborate long takes, as logistically interesting as they are visually so, for the first half hour, it affects nothing materially in the world of the family. And when it does start, it is the mere moving of some objects while Chloe is in the shower, flickering a light, rustling some clothes, or inconspicuously closing a door. And these scenes are as unsettling as any creepy effect or sudden scare is, because Soderbergh so effectively immerses you in a sense of reality. We occupy the space of this house as much as anyone in the family by the way that the camera takes us through it -and the fact that the takes are so long and unbroken it makes these movies that defy logic stick harder. In some ways it is equivalent to what the Paranormal Activity movies popularized, but more subtle, and given the lens of the viewer, much more creepy.
Because we are sharing the perspective of an anomalous entity. Unlike in something like Nickel Boys we can’t discern anything but the barest of its motivations, though a few things do become clearer by the end. There is an aversion this presence has to Ryan (West Mulholland), a friend of Tyler’s who becomes Chloe’s sexual partner but is very obviously untrustworthy, taking advantage of her emotional vulnerability. The most striking sign of emotion from this spirit comes when Tyler relates a story of a “prank” pulled on a female classmate (that more or less amounts to revenge porn) and the spirit charges up to his bedroom and trashes it. This is the instance that finally alerts the family to the phenomenon -apart from Chloe who could in some small way sense it from the beginning.
A part of this certainly feels like Soderbergh showing off, most of it filmed with the drone cameras that he has become more and more interested in exploring. But the conceit matches the technique in ambition, and both suit the story. It’s remarkable too how, for being restricted to this third-person observer, the characters come off to us as clearly defined, especially father and daughter; and so too does the real source of terror when it raises its head. The Presence is witness to all this, moving within the home, but most often stationed in Chloe's closet, where it can best spy on and subtly interact with the troubled teenager -a situation both intriguing and unsettling. In this manner the entity becomes a reflection of the audience, its motivations crystallizing if its nature remains enigmatic -though hints that it is some poltergeist come when a medium is brought in, predicting a cryptic disaster it will be responsible for.
The drama of the family and their gradually unraveling relationship is more intense than any supernatural implication, and our vantage point of it is a big reason why. The conspicuous framing renders the effect unseemly, as the audience is made voyeur to private thoughts and moments, and Soderbergh ratchets that discomfort in a few critical sequences -especially featuring Ryan. All along, our audience frustration is channeled by this spiritual avatar, capable of effecting limited change at times but just as often inert -a personification achieved of our investment in the story, the guy yelling at the screen.
The Presence is not strictly our surrogate though -we do learn its identity in a beat near the end that is a fairly chillingly enacted twist. But that doesn't cheapen the mystery or detract from the intimate effect of what in lesser hands would be a mere gimmick. What Soderbergh has done is essentially make the Rear Window of ghost movies, and Presence stands as a similar watermark for its type, broadly more technical in feat, but no less impressive. Quite literally, a different angle on ghost movies, and proof that Soderbergh's range as a filmmaker has still not yet been totally revealed.
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