Ghosts (2006) User Reviews

Restraint and simplicity is powerful.

[roy-54 · 8/10 · 8 February 2007]

I'm disappointed that only one comment on Ghosts has been posted since the film's release. It is, I think, an important film that deserves commentary.

On the whole, I'm not a fan of Nick Broomfield and his usual technique of 'authored' or 'performed' documentaries, in which he often plays a starring role. As a consequence, I've never before been to a theatrical screening of one of his films. In the early sequences of Ghosts, the approach is very much like a television documentary or a reality TV show. As I don't like reality TV, my interest was held less by style and more by the details of the narrative and by the chance to compare the notion of a long journey of illegal immigration with that shown in Michael Winterbottom's In This World. Broomfield doesn't display Winterbottom's creativity in conveying the horrors of the journey and I began to worry that the film wouldn't take off. However, it does, largely because the central characters become more 'narrativised' -- by which I mean that they become more like characters in a fictional narrative and I began to feel for them and their terrible predicament.

The film is based on real events, so in a sense the audience knows what is going to happen, if not precisely what will happen to individual characters. Nevertheless, I found the last 20 minutes both riveting and terribly distressing. I've walked in Morecambe Bay, but not out into the estuary where I would never go without an official guide. Knowing how dangerous something is makes the suspense even worse for me.

Overall Broomfield and Jez Lewis are remarkably restrained in not trying to present a black and white world of wrong and right in the film. The story is told from the perspective of the Chinese workers. I haven't read all the details of the trials of the Chinese gangmaster and his accomplices which took place in 2006, but at first glance, the film offers something that is not a conventional crime/exploitation story and more an affecting personal drama. There is relatively little 'plot' and much more about developing understanding for the characters. Unfortunately I suspect that not many audiences will see the film in cinemas and when it appears on TV, it will be lost amidst Channel 4's reality TV wallpaper. I hope not, because it deserves to be seen and discussed.

stays with me

[m_white · 7/10 · 22 October 2015]

I saw this movie at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2007. I didn't expect it to stay with me, but it has. It recreates the experiences of a young Chinese woman who pays a human trafficker to get her into England, where she can earn money to send home. The film tells the story of her six-month journey to England and what her life was like after she arrived there, which is, in essence, invisible, undocumented slavery. The title of the film is problematic; many people probably expect a paranormal thriller. But I understand why the filmmaker chose it. Ghosts are beings who live among us but are invisible. Like two parallel universes, two different realities living layered together but separate and invisible.

(Spoiler ahead) The film's climax comes the day she and her fellow workers are driven out onto a huge flat beach to dig for cockles. The hours go by, and they keep digging. Finally the water is coming up around their ankles and they must go. But they realize they have no idea which way to go. In all directions, miles of empty sand beaches stretch out as far as the eye can see, and they've lost their bearings. Their van is soon swamped. The woman ends up standing on top of the van with the others in utter darkness, trying to call her mother so she can hear her son's voice one last time. Thankfully, someone got through to some emergency services and they were found and saved, but not before 23 people drowned. The young woman survived. This happened on Feb. 5, 2004.

Recently I ran across a reference to Morecambe Bay in Lancashire emphasizing how dangerous it is, and realized this had to be the location from that movie. Indeed, it was. Morecambe Bay lies on Britain's west coast, halfway up the side. It is actually an estuary, the mouth of five major rivers and their peninsulas along with seven islands. It is the largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand in the UK, covering 120 square miles. At low tide, you can walk between the islands and far out onto the sands, but the bay is notorious for its quicksand and fast-moving tides. It is said that the tide comes in "as fast as a horse can run." For centuries, there have been royally appointed local guides called "Queen's Guide to the Sands" to take people across safely. The Chinese boss probably did not know this.

When I saw this film, I had a hard time understanding how these people could become so lost out on the sands. I'd always imagined the tide coming in like you see in movies. Nice big waves coming from one direction, in toward land – in other words, with a discernible direction. But I know now that in mudflats, the water just seeps in around you. And with 120 miles of sand, there's plenty of ways to lose your bearings.

The overall tone of the film reflects that disorientation very well. The action may seem mundane, but the sense of disconnectedness is powerful and memorable. The Chinese woman is helpless, powerless, lost, like being in suspended animation. Time loses all meaning except for your work shift. There is no context, no cushioning reality outside your own. Psychologically, the woman is utterly alone.

"Ghosts" is an ultra-low-budget film with amateur actors, nearly all the dialogue ad-libbed – there is nothing particularly memorable about the film as such. And yet it comes back to me when I see video of desperate Syrians carrying only a water bottle, telling about loved ones lost in the water in the dark. I remember that Chinese woman, how alone she was, how powerless, how disconnected. Europe is full of people like her, and probably so is the US. When you take them as a group, you see the bigger political picture, the logistics, the impossible problems. But when you take them as individuals, you see a human being who needs help. In that regard, I have to say, eight years after seeing this film, "Ghosts" stays with me.

No Easy Answers

[JamesHitchcock · 7/10 · 20 September 2007]

Britain has a large Chinese community, according to the latest estimates over 250,000 strong, and possibly nearly double that figure. For various reasons, however, they tend to have a lower profile among white Britons than do other ethnic minorities such as the South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities, and films about them are rare, "Sour Sweet" being an exception. "Ghosts" takes a look at those with the lowest profile of all, the illegal Chinese immigrants who, in recent years, have been arriving in Britain to take low-paid jobs in a number of industries. As others have pointed out, the title has a double meaning. On the one hand, it is a derogatory Chinese term for white people. On the other, it refers to the immigrant workers themselves, who are "ghosts" in the sense that they are almost invisible, unnoticed by British officialdom and largely ignored by the wider British society.

The film is based upon a real-life tragedy which occurred in Morecambe Bay in February 2004, when 23 Chinese cockle-pickers drowned after being caught by the tide. (Morecambe Bay is an estuary in Lancashire which is notable both for the large amount of sand and mudflats which are exposed at low tide and for the speed with which the rising tide can come in). It follows the fortunes of Ai Qin (pronounced Ai Chin), a divorced young mother who travels to Britain in the hope of making a better life and of earning more money with which to support her young son.

Today's People's Republic of China tends to get a good press both from leftists with sentimental memories of the Mao Tse-Tung poster on the wall of their student bedsit and from rightists who approve of its commitment to free enterprise, but it can also be seen as a state which incorporates both the worst of Communism and the worst of capitalism, a combination of an oppressive one-party dictatorship and an economic system which permits the ruthless exploitation of the working class. It is this downside of the Chinese economic "miracle" which we see in the film. Like many people in the poverty-stricken, rural province of Fujian (Fukien), Ai Qin sees conditions in China as being so hopeless that illegal immigration to the West is the only answer. She agrees to pay a "snakehead" $25,000 to smuggle her into Britain; this, of course, is an impossible sum for a poor Chinese villager to find, so she enters into an agreement whereby she will pay him a deposit and then pay the balance gradually out of her wages in Britain.

After a long journey across Asia and Europe, Ai Qin arrives in Britain. She is taken on by a Chinese gangmaster who hires out migrant labour to farms and food-processing factories in and around Thetford, in the Breckland area of Norfolk. She is forced to share a small house with eleven other illegal immigrants and to pay £25 a week out of her meagre wages for the privilege. The Chinese migrants are resented by the local people, and after the house is wrecked by vandals and the police start to take an interest in his activities, the gangmaster decides to shift his operations to Lancashire, where he has heard that good money can be made from cockle-picking.

The subject of immigration is currently a controversial one in Britain, and the film concentrates more on the personal experience of the immigrants themselves than on the political debate. We see a few British characters, such as Robert, Ai Qin's unpleasant landlord in Thetford or the corrupt official at the employment agency, accepting bribes to ignore the fact that the migrants are working illegally, but for the most part the native English population are a vague, ghostly, threatening presence. Some have seen the film as an indictment of racist attitudes, but it is by no means certain that the Norfolk farm-workers or Lancashire cockle-pickers are motivated by racism, if by that term is meant a white supremacist ideology or a belief in the superiority of one race over another. The Breckland, an agricultural district with poor sandy soils and low rainfall, and Morecambe, a seaside resort suffering from the decline of the British holiday industry, are both economically depressed areas, and the local people see the influx of low-paid immigrant labour- with justification- as a threat to their livelihoods.

This is the second film about illegal immigration to be shown on British television in recent weeks, the first being Stephen Frears's "Dirty Pretty Things". The two films, despite their similar subject-matter, are different in style. Frears used the twilight world of illegal migrants as the backdrop to a traditional thriller. Nick Broomfield's film, a fictionalised retelling of real events made using amateur actors and no scripted dialogue, is closer in style to a "fly-on-the-wall" documentary. Of the two films I would, marginally, prefer Frears's, which has a more gripping plot- Broomfield makes the mistake of giving away the ending to his film right at the beginning, by starting with a film showing the cockle-pickers trapped by the tide. Nevertheless, "Ghosts" has much to recommend it. Ai Qin Lin gives a wonderfully natural and unaffected performance as the heroine, and the film gives us a good insight into the problems faced by migrant labourers, problems to which there are no easy answers. 7/10.

Excellent

[marciepost8888 · 10/10 · 1 March 2007]

The title of Nick Broomfield's new film is deliberately ambiguous; ghosts being the disparaging term the Chinese use to describe white westerners and (possibly) a reference to the invisibility of poorly paid, unprotected non-British workers who work in slave conditions in the food industry.

Three years ago such workers made the news, briefly, when 23 illegal Chinese immigrants drowned in Morecambe Bay while digging for cockles late one evening. As the waters rose around them, they rang their families to say goodbye, unaware they'd have been better off ringing 999.

Their deaths inspired the notorious Broomfield to make a film in which he re-enacts the events leading up to the disaster. In this he is assisted by a cast of amateurs, many of whom are themselves illegal immigrants, and the film's star Ai Qi Lin, a non-professional, whom we follow through various low-skilled jobs in the food industry in a bid to pay back the $25,000 she borrowed from 'Snakeheads' to smuggle her into the country.

There are times when she must wonder why she bothered, forced as she is to live in a two-bedroom house with 11 other Chinese immigrants, all of whom are sworn at and spat on by their neighbours. The landlord is no better: he overcharges them.

And yet, for all that., despite the horrific ending, Ghosts isn't entirely bereft of hope. After all, if nothing else, its impact is such that it should force us all to question our own appetite for cheap food and embarrass supermarkets into altering the way their products are produced.

a stunning movie

[itsacharliebrownchristma · 9/10 · 11 February 2007]

I went to see this movie without really knowing much about it beyond that it was the story of the cockle pickers tragedy, and I left the theatre feeling utterly empty and shocked. It is an incredibly moving piece of work, cast by non-professionals, who I thought did a great job. The movie at times has a documentary feel about it because it is very natural, no special effects of fancy lighting, and the ordinariness of the household and factory scenes convey the grimness of the workers' existence.

The music is very apt as it has an Oriental dreamlike quality about it, which made me think that the workers probably spend their humdrum lives daydreaming about being back in China with their families.

It was a depressing movie for me as it casts us British people in a bad, but not unrealistic, light, and here we see some parts of British culture that most of us feel uncomfortable with - we love getting cheap supermarket food but don't really want to know how it gets to our shelves.

I really recommend this movie to everyone, but warn you that it is a very powerful, affecting movie that will stay with you for the rest of the day. I almost felt like crying at the end, and it has been a long time since a movie made me do that. In fact, I felt so upset when I left the theatre that I made myself go to see another movie just one hour later to clear my head (that movie being the truly awful 'Epic movie').

This movie will make you feel bad and good all at the same time, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

if you like this film read - NOT ON THE LABEL

[stevolution666 · 15 January 2007]

i saw this very recently and i implore everyone to see it.

this film is brilliant in it's illustration of the lives of people forced to take desperate measures.

the need for money being at the heart of the story, and money having no heart being part of the problem.

one question it raises is responsibility, and you can't help but think governments across the world must change the

economic and subsequent social situations that require these pyramids of suffering to occur.

i particularly enjoyed the depiction of English racists, very life-like disgusting ignorant and often ugly.

the greed greasing the wheels of exploitation on every level was thought provoking.

in all an absolute masterpiece

Harrowing but true

[paul2001sw-1 · 9/10 · 10 May 2007]

The dreadful plight of illegal immigrants to the U.K. has been highlighted in a number of films, including Michael Winterbottom's 'In This World' and Channel 4's miniseries 'Sex Traffic'. While Nick Broomfield was motivated by the tragedy of the deaths of Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecombe Bay to abandon his normal style (of self-led investigative documentary) to film a dramatic reconstruction of their story. He handles the transition in styles well, and his film is realistic, harrowing and marked by striking photography of Britain's ugly-beautiful underbelly. Particularly good is the portrayal of the gang-master, a villain, yet also a victim at the same time. If there's a criticism its that, judged purely as drama, the story is almost too harrowing, with no hope of redemption at the end. But of course, the events depicted actually happened and, with the exception of the final chapter, continue to happen: this is an important film, and one that asks awkward questions for those of us rich off the backs of migrant labour.

Unswayingly sympathetic but still powerful and absorbing docu-drama

[wellthatswhatithinkanyway · 9/10 · 20 April 2007]

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

When 23 illegal Chinese cockle pickers drowned on the shores of Morcombe Bay in 2004, it exposed a dark, organized criminal underworld that most of us are probably vaguely aware of but blissfully turn a blind eye to. A secret, controlled network between organized gangs here and in places like China. This film follows the story of real life illegal Ai Qin, who travels to Britain from China in a sealed box in the back of a lorry in order to provide a better life for her son. But when she arrives in the UK, the only thing she finds waiting is domineering slave masters, disgusting living conditions and awful jobs with low pay. It all carries on with no solution until the night of the ill-fated MB disaster, which she was one of the few lucky enough to survive.

Nick Broomfield, of Kurt and Courtney fame, has gone to pain-staking lengths to dramatize an imagined drama of what likely happened on the night of the Morcambe Bay cockle-picking disaster, staging a painfully authentic and believable tale that pulls no punches and tells it exactly like it is. All the cast, headed by real life immigrant Qin, pull off honest and earthly performances in a depressing and hopeless tale with some surprising little dashes of humour here and there that perk things up a bit.

The only bum note is the unfairly sympathetic tone Broomfield chooses to accompany his film, tugging at our heart strings with the information of the immigrants spending six months on their journey to the UK mostly concealed in boxes, how most of them will never see their families again, how the British government still refuses to help the families back in China and how awful it all is. Poverty must be an awful thing, but these people did come over to our country unlawfully, taking jobs with forged documents that belonged to unemployed British people, and must have had some idea of the risks involved. To try and imply that our government should help when they were offered no protection or right to work here in the first place does seem a bit over the top to me. It is a very tragic tale all round, though, and one Broomfield, and his cast made up of other illegal immigrants (performance or re-enactment?) have brought to life quite powerfully. ****

Gripping, involving, emotional - watch it!

[jjvmadden · 9/10 · 16 September 2009]

This DVD had been resting on my shelf for some months - I kept putting off viewing it because I feared it would be a depressing watch. On the contrary, I found it to be hugely involving and, at times, extremely funny. It is incredibly moving (you will have to have a pretty hard heart not to cry at some scenes) but the eye-opening and potentially 'worthy' message is communicated with a humanity that is motivating and positive rather than simply depressing.

Nick Broomfield tells the story with subtle skill. The illusion of documentary reality is almost perfect but this does not distance the viewer from the characters - we enter into their thoughts and feelings partly through the excellent and subtle use of music and partly from utterly convincing performances.

A worthy but ultimately tedious exercise

[kevbee · 2/10 · 9 April 2007]

This is not so much a film more a docudrama. Nick Broomfield chooses to tell the story through the experience of one girl. Whilst it is certainly shocking to see innocent people manipulated by heartless people-traffickers and exploited (in this case by British Chinese as well as British Caucasians), I couldn't help but feel that I was being 'hectored' by the director.

Strangely, in spite of the awful outcome of this sorry episode, I felt little compassion for the central character. This was in part due to the lack-lustre acting by the ensemble cast. Much of the film had the feel of improvisation about it. And there was so much repetition - endless shots of our illegals being driven in a mini van to yet another low-pay employment opportunity. The pace of this piece is funereal.

What really irked me though were the end captions. Nick Broomfield informs us that most illegal Chinese immigrants never make it back to their homeland. Fair comment. But then he declares that the British government have refused to pay off the debts of the Chinese cockle-pickers that survived this tragedy. Does he really expect the government (of whatever colour) to pick up the tab for debts incurred in other countries by people who are working here in the black economy? I think the story of the Chinese cockle-pickers is a story worth telling. It's a pity this film didn't do a better job of it.

Wonderful film

[admin-1038 · 26 May 2007]

A shaming portrayal of the way the UK benefits from cheap labour of illegal immigrants. The format is feature film, rather than fly on the wall documentary that audiences are used to, from Nick Broomfield.

It's superbly done and Broomfield has made it easy on the viewer with a very straightforward blow-by-blow account. The camera seems to go right to the heart of the lives of these unfortunate people, without being overly sentimental.

It's an arresting film, very beautifully composed and with a soundtrack that only assists in forcing you to quietly question why this happened.

It would do little Britain some good if this film was part of the national curriculum, in 'our' schools.

Not a great film but a worthy one

[bob the moo · 15 June 2008]

In February 2004, twenty three illegal Chinese immigrants drowned in Morecambe Bay. This film follows the journey of one immigrant, Ai Qin, who sets out from China to travel to England to make a lot of money to support her young son. The travel is expensive (£25,000) and the journey takes over six months, illegally grossing many borders by hiding in containers or secret compartments. When she arrives in London, Qin finds herself taken north where she joins a crowded squat of other Chinese people and, after purchasing fake papers, gets hard labour jobs with long hours and low wages.

I'll be honest and say that Ghosts sat on my HDD for around about eight months before I finally got to watching it – it just never felt like I was in the mood for it. Tonight I decided to watch it and in a way I still feel a bit like it was something I had to see rather than was glad that I saw. It is not a great film and I think it is worth me saying that out loud. A lot of the very positive reviews I have read have tended to focus on the importance of the topic, the scale of the problem or the human suffering involved. These are not things of Broomfield's creation nor things that the film should be credited for. In tackling these subjects I have no qualms acknowledging that the film is certainly "worthy" but this should not be mistaken for the film being brilliant.

That said, it is a good piece of work that does gain credit for highlighting the subject in a film. The making of is typically Broomfield and is a documentary style without formal script or professional actors. At times this does hurt the film because some scenes are clunky and more than a couple of performances are stiff and unnatural. Fortunately these do not badly affect the film in the main, in particular Ai Qin Lin is very convincing and touching in her turn, and many of the other main players are good. Broomfield doesn't help himself either because not only is the film slightly longer than it can bear, but he does labour his points heavily at times. In one scene we have a clumsy piece of dialogue where one characters asks where the vegetables they are illegally picking will be sent and "Asda, Sainburys, Tesco, supermarkets" is the reply. This is a crass and clumsy way to make a good point – and it does damage the point. Sadly there are several examples like that one, not least of which is the caption that declares the British Government has refused to help pay off the debts the families of the twenty-three still have, as if that is the crux of the problem.

Despite these issues the film is still quite good but, because of them, it is not as great as many would have you believe. However it is an important and worthy film and, for all its flaws I would still recommend you see it or the good it has in its making, message and topic.