Civil Death: In Roman law, a person convicted of a crime where the punishment included loss of their legal rights. A person without civil rights - a civil dead.
The story set in high tech prison, in the middle of Australian desert, follows an outbreak of violent crimes that has resulted in total lock down. Director John Hillcoat (The Road, Lawless, Proposition) combines narrative techniques in order to depict the chain of events in most realistic fashion. Very gruesome, depressive and claustrophobic tone of the film combined with scenes of violence makes this a good candidate for Extreme film lists. As you can imagine, Ghosts...is not an entertaining film, quite the contrary. Its raw, stripped, matter-of-fact cinematography rarely provides solace and sense of dread, panic and tension never quite ceases.
The film is very offensive, sweaty, macho, filled with testosterone despair as much as the characters it follows around relentlessly, in an honest and not quite polished attempt to raise some important social questions. The fact it's based on real events makes it even more sickening.
Most of us have seen good share of prison films, and you usually know what to expect. We know about rumors of drug smuggling, gangs, sexual assaults and all the other chilling stuff that follow these threatening institutions. But you usually don't get fed most intimate and gruesome of details you don't wanna know about when mainstream cinema's concerned. This film, however....thrives on it. We get sort of exclusive and non squeamish insight into inmates' every day life, with all the filth that follows.
Nick Cave has co-written and played a small part here, as crazy Maynard. He also wrote the haunting score, that stresses the sense of paranoia and despair even more.
With the help of camera's clinical precision we witness all the things we've been fearing exist within the walls of high security correctional institutions, and more. Rape, drug use, murder, suicide, beatings, you name it. But, there seems to be the point in displaying all the atrocities, even though the camera rarely insists on lingering onto scenes of violence, sometimes seems as if gets "forgotten", but even so, controlled. There is a political implication here. Apparently, the government has used the prison's clashes and state of complete lock down to justify the construction of even more high tech institutions. Men are being held in their cells and void of the recreation, TV and other pass times, so the anger builds leading to more violent outbursts. Prisoners are brought in and eventually released as even bigger danger to society than they were before. So, the circle of violence continues.
Took me whole afternoon to finish this dramatic testimony and sort of brief anatomy of violence. In case you were wondering there are, and will be gorier, more graphic depictions of dark part of humanity. But rarely so stuffy, depressing and realistically brutal. You know the phrase some people use when they want to stress the filthiness of the video/film: "made me want to take a shower afterward". Well, this one sure did, testified!
The story set in high tech prison, in the middle of Australian desert, follows an outbreak of violent crimes that has resulted in total lock down. Director John Hillcoat (The Road, Lawless, Proposition) combines narrative techniques in order to depict the chain of events in most realistic fashion. Very gruesome, depressive and claustrophobic tone of the film combined with scenes of violence makes this a good candidate for Extreme film lists. As you can imagine, Ghosts...is not an entertaining film, quite the contrary. Its raw, stripped, matter-of-fact cinematography rarely provides solace and sense of dread, panic and tension never quite ceases.
The film is very offensive, sweaty, macho, filled with testosterone despair as much as the characters it follows around relentlessly, in an honest and not quite polished attempt to raise some important social questions. The fact it's based on real events makes it even more sickening.
Most of us have seen good share of prison films, and you usually know what to expect. We know about rumors of drug smuggling, gangs, sexual assaults and all the other chilling stuff that follow these threatening institutions. But you usually don't get fed most intimate and gruesome of details you don't wanna know about when mainstream cinema's concerned. This film, however....thrives on it. We get sort of exclusive and non squeamish insight into inmates' every day life, with all the filth that follows.
Nick Cave has co-written and played a small part here, as crazy Maynard. He also wrote the haunting score, that stresses the sense of paranoia and despair even more.
With the help of camera's clinical precision we witness all the things we've been fearing exist within the walls of high security correctional institutions, and more. Rape, drug use, murder, suicide, beatings, you name it. But, there seems to be the point in displaying all the atrocities, even though the camera rarely insists on lingering onto scenes of violence, sometimes seems as if gets "forgotten", but even so, controlled. There is a political implication here. Apparently, the government has used the prison's clashes and state of complete lock down to justify the construction of even more high tech institutions. Men are being held in their cells and void of the recreation, TV and other pass times, so the anger builds leading to more violent outbursts. Prisoners are brought in and eventually released as even bigger danger to society than they were before. So, the circle of violence continues.
Took me whole afternoon to finish this dramatic testimony and sort of brief anatomy of violence. In case you were wondering there are, and will be gorier, more graphic depictions of dark part of humanity. But rarely so stuffy, depressing and realistically brutal. You know the phrase some people use when they want to stress the filthiness of the video/film: "made me want to take a shower afterward". Well, this one sure did, testified!