Ghosts Reviews

Making a drama out of a crisis

There is a small band of British filmmakers (Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Michael Winterbottom) who you can always rely on to produce edgy, relevant and inventive cinema. Nick Broomfield is in this group. Just when it looked like his usual style (of following around, trying and often spectacularly failing to get close to his subjects) was wearing thin, Broomfield has pulled a rabbit out of the hat with this potent dramatisation of the drowning of 23 illegal Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004. The style is low-key, using real locations and a non-professional cast, many of whom were illegal immigrants themselves. Lead actress Ai Qin Lin gives the sort of raw performance that a million acting lessons can’t buy. Ghosts has some extremely disturbing moments, but Broomfield employs his usual brand of absurdist humour to at least make his film watchable, for example with the bumbling attempts by a gangmaster to bribe an employment agency for work (with boxes of chocolates!) and the moments of humour amongst the workers themselves (during a supermarket visit, finding that vegetables they may have picked are too expensive for them to afford). It may not have gotten the attention of Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake, Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley or Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo, but Ghosts might just be better than any of them.

Ignorance

I felt oliged to comment about this film about reading a couple of previous 'reviews'. Ignore the ignorance of the 'customer from the West Country' who seems to think that because a film is acted out in a foreign language it must be rubbish. Yes the film is British funded and made by a British director with a British crew, but it is the true tragic story of a group of Chinese immigrants who came illegally to work in Britain and ended up as slaves - the backbone it seems of our supermarket suppliers. Yes FUNNILY ENOUGH and purely to keep in with the feeling of authenticity, they do speak in Mandarin so be warned you people who cant be bothered to read. Overall, a powerful and gripping experience and comes highly recommended.

Fantastic film

I think it's a fantastic film because it portrays really well the real truth behind immigration and the contradictions in feelings in immigrants, they don't come here because they love England but because they need the money. If they could choose they would stay in their country with their family and the surroundings they grow up with. They are exploited there and exploited here and we all contribute to it with our consumerism. They don't come here to steal anything but to earn a decent money to be able to survive. The film portrays all this without rubbing it on your nose, no lectures, no obvious patronising sentences or anything like that, it is through the story and the reflection that comes while watching the film that you are faced with the truth. I'm buying the film to keep it and watch it again as a reminder that there are still many things to change in this society.

I seriously hope the review by 'A customer from the west country' was meant to be some kind of ironic joke.Whatever, they clearly have no respect for others' plights - perhaps they'd like to live in a country where they are persecuted, then try their best to make their way in another country & be subjected to racism & bigoted attitudes.

Perhaps that reviewer would have liked the film to be made in a Hollywood style, maybe with Lucy Lui as the glamorous immigrant & Brad Pitt as a fisherman - to complain that the film is by an English director but be in Chinese is not only narrow minded but also quite stupid. Perhaps that reviewer would like all films about any situation, no matter where in the world & involving any nationality, to be voiced in English just to help them understand what's going on in the film? I'd recommend that reviewer to maybe read the newspaper or whatch the news every now & again, get a bit of an education. Sadly I doubt that'll happen.

Luckily, I would imagine the majority of viewers of this film will look on the subject matter & take something from it. Very powerful stuff from Broomfield, as usual.

Saddening but Absurd

It's a moving film but at the same time I feel that there is something not quite right about it. It's a strange look at how Illegal Immigrants are treated and is clearly done on a limited budget.

I was amazed and appauled at the end of the film when an appeal for money to pay off the debts of the people was made. It is absurd to ask the public to pay off the debts of Illegal immigrants. The word Illegal clearly means nothing to the makers of this film. The people to blame for their plight is the Chinese people who organise this activity. If people think with their heads rather than their hearts they will not give money to such a cauise.

rubbish

dont like sub for a start so dont send me any more please?????????????????????

Powerful stuff

This is a deeply moving and tragic story. Not only because of the outcome that we all know about, but for the way the film portrays the hoplessness of the the entire situation leading up to the tragedy. It reminded me a lot of 'Sex traffic', but with a more edgy documentary feel to it. If you are a fan of Alan Clarke style drama docs, this is one for you.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Facts all wrong

To start with I haven't seen the film as I was instantly put off by the desciption, firstly because the location of the event was said to be in the South East. Unless they have moved Morcambe Bay it is situated in Lancashire, in the North West. Secondly I struggle to enjoy a film with subtitles.

Thought Provoking and Shameful!

This was a very sad film, which I thought about for a number of days after watching. Shameful behaviour and to think this is based on facts!!! A sad display of human nature at its worst.

Shame on you!

The 'customer in the west country' is one of the reasons I feel ashamed to be British!

This film was about Chinese illegal immigrants who risk their lives to escape from oppression and intolerable poverty and hardship (and try to help their relatives still 'trapped' in China.)

Obviously this reviewer from the west country has never known such hardship and is unable to empathise. Presumably he has literacy problems too as the challenge of reading subtitles was too much for him... I felt sick to my stomach reading his review...the Daily Mail has a lot to answer for that such attitudes exist in a supposedly civilised country. The only positive thing I can glean is that the type of people who really need to see films such as 'Ghost's' rarely do ,so even if our west country bigot just absorbed a fraction of the film's message that is a good thing!