“Then she knew. She knew that she was seeing a ghost, and she realized for perhaps the first time in her life, that she too would die. That her husband would die. And that her children would die. She knew in that moment, that she was looking at reality”
Is it a scarier prospect that ghosts are real, or just inventions of the mind? This is one of the fundamental questions wrestled with in the little watched Irish film “The Eclipse.” It is a film that focuses on loss, and how the people we love fill spaces in our world that don’t close easily when they’re gone. It is about holding onto whatever is left, even pain, in order to avoid forgetting, and how that can turn toxic and limiting. The film is a hybrid of a slow paced character study, relationship drama and horror. It borrows all sorts of tricks from the latter to ramp up tension and even provides a few jump scares and ghost sightings. Using voyeuristic camera angles, shots from inside darkened rooms and just behind railings or bushes, it gives the whole film a feeling of dread lurking just outside the frame. But this dread isn’t usually of the typical horror manner, it isn’t a chainsaw wielding maniac or vengeful spirit manifesting itself to expel intruders. The dread is of a more human kind. When someone loses a wife, a mother, a child or anyone really, what do they hold onto ultimately to keep their life from spinning out of control?