Movie Review for Ghosts of Cite Soleil

Summary: Captures life and death during the last months of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's regime. In Port-au-Prince's most desperately poor and dangerous neighborhoods, heavily armed street gangs known as chimeres (ghosts) serve as the regime's enforcers, trampling on the legal authority and terrorizing the political opposition. But a new, more brutal counter-revolution may soon end their regime.

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Christopher Tookey of Daily Mail [UK] (7/0)
            Dark, dreary, depressing documentary

By Sukhdev Sandhu of Daily Telegraph (4/3)
            This is as appalling, and viscerally compelling, a documentary as will be released all year.

By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
            Viewing the political tumult in 2004 Haiti through the perspective of two gangleader brothers, th...

By Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            A spectacularly turbulent portrait of the chaos and bloodshed that have come to define Haiti.

By Kam Williams of EURWeb (7/0)
            Fascinating stuff, but this portrait of these scary 'altar boys' is probably the last thing that ...

By Peter Bradshaw of Guardian [UK] (7/0)
            This deeply questionable movie presents itself as a documentary. Actually it is hardly more than ...

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Sura Wood of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            It's an unforgettable, visceral journey into the heart of darkness, grueling poverty and anarchy.

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (7/0)
            When it comes to depicting hell on Earth, Ghosts of Cite Soleil burns right through the eyeballs ...

By Kevin Crust of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            An expressionistic portrait of a society in violent chaos, the film blends cinéma vérité and n...

By Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News (7/0)
            [An] indelible documentary, which dives into the brutal heart of a place most people would avoid ...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (4/3)
            Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cité Soleil offers a tour of a notorious, hellish slum in Port-au-Prince, ...

By Prairie Miller of NewsBlaze (6/1)
            Besides anti-Aristide diatribes mouthed a little too much on cue by these hooligans, there's also...

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Jim Hemphill of Reel.com (7/0)
            Consistently riveting thanks to the sense of sheer terror that infuses its best moments.

By Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            This flashy looking documentary scored by Haitian singer Wyclef Jean is such a frightening inside...

By Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            The ultra-violence of this microcosm [gang] society is what Ghosts is all about.

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (7/0)
            Leth ... gets us so close to life in Cité Soleil that we practically can hear the bullets and sme...

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
            For a documentary, this film has one of the most gripping narratives of the year.

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
            A daring documentary about two violent young Haitian gang leaders and their lives in a slum that ...

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Stuart McGurk of thelondonpaper (7/0)
            Intimate and terrifying, at points almost expressionistic and surreal, this is never less than a ...

By Derek Malcolm of This is London (7/0)
            Leth shows us the horrendous nature of the period but fails to provide much necessary political a...

By James Christopher of Times [UK] (7/0)
            The tone of the movie is excessively in thrall to its admittedly charismatic subjects.

By Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            Danish filmmaker Asger Leth's gritty documentary is an all-too-real -- and rarely seen -- glimpse...

By Todd McCarthy of Variety (7/0)
            If only due to the access achieved, there has never been anything quite like Asger Leth's film; i...

By Prairie Miller of WBAI Web Radio (7/0)
            A lumpen version of history in the service of neo-colonialism. Oh, and yes perhaps a US recording...

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Shlomo Schwartzberg of Boxoffice Magazine (6/1) No reference
            Shot like a music video, the movie is quick-cutting, glossy and superficial, causing one to wonde...

By Bryant Frazer of Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus (3/4) No reference
            This is a film that burns.

By Jamie Russell of Channel 4 Film (3/4) No reference
            Raw authenticity makes this a strong contender for a Haitian City of God, but it seems too staged...

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (3/4) No reference
            Ghosts of Cite Soleil is a curiously unfocused, rambling film that never really settles on exactl...

By Frank Lovece of Film Journal International (3/4) No reference
            This privileged-class filmmaker is so enamored of his romantically outlaw subjects and the woman ...

By Anthony Quinn of Independent (3/4) No reference
            A garbled account of state-aided terror that sheds little light on these dogs of war.

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Rene Rodriguez of Miami Herald (3/4) No reference
            Ghosts of Cite Soleil is too brief and limited in scope to provide a complete picture of Haiti's ...

By Rafer Guzman of Newsday (3/4) No reference
            The director, Asger Leth, isn't terribly organized, but he puts us smack in the middle of everyth...

By Shawn Levy of Oregonian (3/4) No reference
            There's an immediacy to Ghosts of the Cite Soleil that's exceedingly rare for a documentary of an...

By Jon Popick of Planet Sick-Boy (3/4) No reference
            Interesting and quite well done.

By Donald J. Levit of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (3/4) No reference
            The 85 minutes of this documentary are searing, not on gore quotient but through an aura of appal...

By Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com (3/4) No reference
            A moving and profoundly upsetting portrait of life near the bottom of the global power pyramid.

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By Bill White of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (3/4) No reference
            Dutch director Leth is so enamored of the ugliness of it all that he doesn't even try to penetrat...

By Ted Fry of Seattle Times (3/4) No reference
            More horrific than any tale from the crypt Hollywood could conceive.

By Derek Adams of Time Out (3/4) No reference
            Leth’s gritty, haphazardly edited film plays like a music video, with jagged rap sequences interl...

By Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out (3/4) No reference
            The filth, squalor and constant gang menace are all vividly captured in Ghosts of Cité Soleil, a ...

By Matthew Leyland of Total Film (3/4) No reference
            Captured at hair-raisingly close quarters by the fearless filmmakers, the sense of lawlessness gr...

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (3/4) No reference
            Gripping, powerful documentary with a terrific soundtrack and a compelling narrative that resonat...

                         Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil
By J. Hoberman of Village Voice (3/4) No reference
            That the most powerful aspect of this story is described rather than shown is one of Ghosts' many...

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Production Companies
Nordisk Film
Sak Pase Films
Sunset Productions
Independent Pictures

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