Dir.
Nick Broomfield, UK, 2006, 96 mins
Cast: Ai Qin Lin
Review by Samantha Hamilton
In 1999 the bodies of 58 Chinese migrants
were discovered in the back of a lorry in Dover, suffocated
during an attempt to illegally enter the UK. In 2004 a group
of Chinese illegal immigrants working as cocklers perished
at Morecambe bay. Inexperienced and collecting at night to
avoid the wrath of the local cocklers they stood little chance
as the tide set in and grounded their vehicles. Frantic phone
calls for help were replaced by goodbye phones calls to their
families they were swept out to sea by waters that were known
to the locals to have the potential to be deadly. Disorientated
and terrified, in the panic many swam further away from the
coastline and only one of the 24 survived the waters long
enough to be rescued.
Only weeks later there were reports of groups of Chinese
workers back out collecting.
In Ghosts documentary filmmaker Nick
Broomfield pieces together the tragedy surrounding this
silent trade in illegal manpower and that night in Morecambe,
giving voice the thousands of migrants whom each year give
up everything they hold dear to reach a country they believe
will allow them to better their families lives. Instead
many find themselves in a shadowy world of 21st Century ‘civilised’ slavery. Existing
as invisible entities, their illegal status dictates they
live in the shadows, becoming part of a society that offers
exploitation but little else. Before you sympathise but compartmentalise
the situation with thoughts that you don’t dig seafood,
pop into your local supermarket and ask them if they know
exactly who lovingly picked and packed those spring onions
for £2.50 an hour.
Ghosts is both emotive human story
of the struggle for survival and a laying bare of the contributing
economic and political structures, both Chinese and Western.
As China continues its metamorphosis into the world’s
biggest superpower, and the state moves away from subsidies
for its poorer citizens to a capitalist driven economy,
rural regions are being abandoned. The erosion of help
for schooling and medial care for local economies founded
only on limited farming and fishing has seen residents
leave in search of money to sustain their families. Families
fragment as their breadwinners give up everything and incur
enormous debts to moneylenders in the hope of supposed
prosperity in counties such as the UK.
Whilst Ghosts explores the economic
and political its primarily a story centred around a human
tragedy and therefore emotionally charged. It’s both a relief and credit to Broomfield
willingness to push himself out of his comfort zone, that
he has chosen to depart from his usual format. Having been
at the forefront of developing a new documentary film movement “les
Nouvelles Egotistes”, now saturated with the supersized
figures of Michael Moore, Louis Theroux and Morgan Spurlock,
Ghosts sees a welcome move to a new ‘documentary reconstruction’ style
of filmmaking that not only feels fresh but shows another
facet of his creative abilities. He has previously worked
(rather unsuccessfully in a feature film format) in Diamond
Skulls.), but Ghosts format, played out by a cast of non
actors, allows him to retain aspects of his documentary style,
his small crew set up and hand held camera. As a result intimacy
floods through the work. It retains a sparse, pared down
style and at the same time the fiction format allows him
to control the pace and power of emotional intensity. The
result is a beautiful and composed style that perfectly suits
and respects the subject matter.
The essence of Broomfield style remains in his scrupulous
attention to detail, research and closeness to his subject
matter and characters. He invested heavily in building up
an intimacy with his actors and the roots of their story.
Some of his cast, recruited from the UK Chinese community
have first hand experience of the story they re-tell having
entered the UK illegally and struggled survive, yet alone
clear the massive debts they accrued to get here.
At points Ghosts blurs the line between
documentary and fiction even further by overlaying the
fictional retelling of Morecame bay with the true story
of his cast, in particular that of his lead Ai Qin Lin.
An illegal immigrant even at the time of making the film,
and separated from her child for the past 8 years, she
is spellbinding both in her performance and in her willingness
to support Broomfield’s project
by allowing him to be present in what must have been one
of the most emotional experiences of her life (all I can
say without giving the plot away) As the stories entwine
the actors emotions bleed into the narrative.
Ghosts is refreshing in its format, reflective and engaging
in its narrative and touching and thought provoking. The
families of the dead are still paying off the debts to the
gang masters and Chinese immigrants are still cockling, one
just hopes that the film is seen in China both for its worth
as a film and the message it can deliver.
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