Ghost World

(Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

I’ve been thinking about the title of “Ghost World”, a film I have seen many times, the dialogue of which I can now feel like rhythmic sensations coursing through my body as I watch it. I know every beat of it now, watching the fading moments of any current scene give way with endless inevitably to those that follow. But I don’t think about the title that much. I gather it indicates a world that has died and yet cannot find the interest to notice, opting instead for the comforts of modern popular culture. “You give people a Big Mac and a pair of Nikes and they’re happy,” says Seymour. He can’t relate with those people. They’ve passed away.

The choices: Join the dead masses, or continue living. The movie asks what life would be like without the comforts of aspiring to be like everyone else, and asks the question in a way no other movie asks it. Its impertinent, sardonic, dissatisfied vessel of enquiry is Enid, played by Thora Birch, who I would venture to call one of the most attractive female characters ever placed on screen. If I had to choose a “type”, I’d look no further. I see the women I’ve cared deeply for over the last 15 years in subtle ways through Birch’s performance. A strong, young woman with character. Artsy, with a disregard for shallow perceptions and stereotypes. Sarcastic, witty, pale and bespectacled. Be still my beating heart.


I digress, for now. I saw “Ghost World” for the first time at the World Exchange Theatre on Albert Street in Ottawa on Monday, October 1, 2001 at 9:25 PM (I owe my diligent collection of movie ticket stubs for pinpointing that information). The movie is based on a graphic novel of the same name by Daniel Clowes, a copy of which is sitting on my bookshelf, a refugee of a past relationship. I had been endlessly excited to see the film after watching its amazing trailer on the apple.com website. Doubly excited, perhaps, because I was finally living in a city that had theatres that actually showed small-budget and independent films.

The film opens and closes with the song ”Jaan Pehechan Ho” as sung by Mohammed Rafi in the movie “Gumnaam”, a Bollywood film released in 1965. The song delights Enid, who makes it a profession to scour out marginal interests in order to claim them as her own. As much as “Ghost World” is a film about two young women figuring out what to do with their lives after the structure of high school has been pulled from under their trampling feet, it is also about the maturation of Enid’s artistic temperament. She compulsively sketches in a sketchbook, and her drawings are dismissed by flaky art teacher Roberta Allsworth, played by Illeana Douglas. Her relationship with best friend Rebecca, played by Scarlett Johansson, deteriorating, Enid relates to no one other than the boringly eccentric Seymour, who sells her a compilation LP containing “Devil Got My Woman” by Skip James.


Enid’s discovery of the blues is one of the sexiest moments I’ve seen in a film. Having failed at making a rebellious statement by dyeing her hair green, Enid catches the soulful quality of James’ voice in the air and wanders slowly into her bedroom. The camera pans around Birch’s face as the music registers, her eyebrows furrowing slightly at the effect of the music’s delivery and cadence. The shot cuts to the record as it plays, bent and warped with age. When the camera returns to Enid, she is lounging in a bathrobe as though she has just made love. Only when the song ends does she move to return the needle back to the beginning. It is a perfectly sequenced visual representation of how a song can take hold of a listener.


No actor other than Steve Buscemi could have played Seymour. He is just awkward enough, just odd-looking and sheepish enough to pull the right strings. He is yet another oddity in Enid’s collection that she believes sets her apart from everyone else. Withdrawn and bitterly antisocial, Seymour comes to read Enid as his only possibility for happiness. His desperate play for her towards the end of the film puts him in therapy. As I get older, I tend to watch the film from a different perspective than I did at first. I’m getting further away from Enid’s frame of mind and coming to realize how much I don’t want to be like Seymour at 40.


But what about Enid? Throughout the film, a man most view as crazy waits on a bus stop bench for a cancelled route. Only Enid, in her Louis Leakey-like obsession with the offbeat, would talk to this man. She observes him coolly, tired after settling terms with everyone around her. It is early evening. The lights of a Radio Shack and restaurants in the background blare a message of banality. The man rises, and a bus appears to pick him up. Enid regards this as though she has witnessed an asteroid crashing into a field five miles off. The movie appears to end.

Fade in. It is early morning. Enid is dragging a suitcase through an empty downtown street. Commuting cars are peppered lightly on the road. After umpteen viewings, I know she is heading for that bus stop. The sharply bowed strings of the score follow her steps exactly. The bus appears, empty. She makes her way to the back, and the final shot shows the bus taxiing her across a bridge into the unknown. The symbolism is thick, but completely apt.


Every time I watch the last shot fade out I want so badly to know where Enid ends up. I would like to think it is a world in which she is able to keep being as unique as she is. She has spent years trying to figure out how she can exist without the world that defines her as different. Perhaps she can’t. “I used to think about one day,” she tells Seymour, “just not telling anyone and going off to some random place. And I’d just disappear, and they’d never see me again.” Words from an almost ethereal presence in a world of ghosts.


Seven more reviews to go.