Shadowplayed
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!
Zoooma
Prison movie nominated for Best Film at the 1989 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards. Based on a book by a loser murderer convict who did time in Utah before killing someone else after his release and then eventually killing himself behind prison bars. He collaborated on the book with a former prison guard at the U.S. Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois. The movie uses a Nevada prison as its establishing shot but it is an Australian movie, co-written by musician Nick Cave. First person on screen we see is a naked man. And then there's more full frontal male nudity and scenes of man on man rape and inmates who adopt effeminacy and sexually serve the male population. Kind of a disturbing film in a way. Did not enjoy it.4.8 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener
Sopranosfan187
ghosts of the civil dead was an excellent, but slow moving movie. They made the decision to depict most of the violence through typed prison reports, giving the movie a slow-building pace. You are also never introduced to any characters which gives the movie a weird feel. Finally, there is not so much a story as a series of events loosely connected, but all building to a point, that is the riot and subsequent lock down that the film begins with. Anyway, it definitely is a good film, with excellent performances by David field (who gets raped and has the word c*nt tattooed on his forehead) and nick cave (who spends the whole time ranting and raving and smearing his blood on the wall). Also, the guy with the dreadlocks is truly scary when jumping on top of the cage after stabbing the guards. In conclusion it was excellent cinematic style, but i couldn't help feeling that it would have been nice to see some things rather than hear about them.....
ksaelagnulraon
Stunning, almost horrific statement of the effect prisons have on the rest of society, Hillcoat has created a no-holds-barred, fabricated `report' on the inner-workings of an imaginary future prison that is worth seeing - if you can stomach it. There's certainly no doubting what writers Nick Cave and Gene Conkie think of prisons as Australian society's most corporal method of punishment and rehabilitation: although the on-screen activity is certainly shocking enough, what is perhaps even more so is what is not shown (perhaps because it didn't get past the censors?). Field's best role ever.
