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Ghosts of Cité Soleil (2006)

tomatometer

79

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 53
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 11

Asger Leth risked his life to bring audiences this rare and gritty glimpse at Haitian gangs, poverty and politics.

80

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 2

Asger Leth risked his life to bring audiences this rare and gritty glimpse at Haitian gangs, poverty and politics.

audience

70

liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 13,867

My Rating

Movie Info

During the embattled final months of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's second term as president of Haiti, Aristide's allies recruited street gangs from the nation's poorest cities to act as strong-arm men, helping to shut down resistance to Aristide and quiet those who opposed him. Called chimères (or "ghosts"), these gang-bangers became a powerful part of Aristide's forces until the president was removed from office by a coup d'etat in 2004. Dutch filmmaker Asger Leth combines mockumentary reenactments

Unrated, 1 hr. 28 min.

Documentary

,

Nov 20, 2007

ThinkFilm

All Critics (54) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (12) | DVD (4)

An expressionistic portrait of a society in violent chaos, the film blends cinà (C)ma và (C)rità (C) and newsreel footage to capture a modern-day tragedy with Shakespearean overtones.

July 12, 2007 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[An] indelible documentary, which dives into the brutal heart of a place most people would avoid at all cost.

June 29, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The director, Asger Leth, isn't terribly organized, but he puts us smack in the middle of everything: petty squabbles, horrible riots, casual shootings, even a love triangle.

June 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Newsday | Comment
Newsday
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A moving and profoundly upsetting portrait of life near the bottom of the global power pyramid.

June 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Salon.com | Comment
Salon.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cité Soleil offers a tour of a notorious, hellish slum in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

June 27, 2007 Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

That the most powerful aspect of this story is described rather than shown is one of Ghosts' many mysteries. Another is Leth's remarkable access to his subjects.

June 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Village Voice | Comment
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Packs an emotional punch, but that only partly makes up for the lack of a good story

June 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Habit | Comment
Movie Habit

Besides anti-Aristide diatribes mouthed a little too much on cue by these hooligans, there's also a French female relief worker mostly providing sexual relief to a gabby gangster. Not to mention 'relief worker' often as Third World code word for CIA spy.

November 22, 2007 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Besides anti-Aristide diatribes mouthed a little too much on cue by these hooligans, there's also a French female relief worker mostly providing sexual relief to a gabby gangster. Not to mention 'relief worker' often as Third World code word for CIA spy.

November 17, 2007 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Ghosts of Cite Soleil is a curiously unfocused, rambling film that never really settles on exactly what it wants to say or exactly which stories it wants to tell.

August 31, 2007 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | Comment
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Leth ... gets us so close to life in Cité Soleil that we practically can hear the bullets and smell the garbage.

August 31, 2007 Comment
Salt Lake Tribune

There's an immediacy to Ghosts of the Cite Soleil that's exceedingly rare for a documentary of any stripe.

August 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

Ghosts of Cite Soleil is too brief and limited in scope to provide a complete picture of Haiti's turbulent history, but its images of how so many of its citizens live and die on a daily basis -- is both heartbreaking and unforgettable.

August 17, 2007 Comment
Miami Herald

More horrific than any tale from the crypt Hollywood could conceive.

August 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

Dutch director Leth is so enamored of the ugliness of it all that he doesn't even try to penetrate the noisy bravado that obscures the patches of truth that lie beneath the surface.

August 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Comment
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The ultra-violence of this microcosm [gang] society is what Ghosts is all about.

July 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

This flashy looking documentary scored by Haitian singer Wyclef Jean is such a frightening inside look at a poverty stricken society ruled by violence that it is a marvel that it got made.

July 22, 2007 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

Goes beyond front-line journalism to show the men behind the guns.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Little White Lies | Comment
Little White Lies

Intimate and terrifying, at points almost expressionistic and surreal, this is never less than a nerve-shredding experience. It even includes an (improbable) love story.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: thelondonpaper | Comment
thelondonpaper

Leth shows us the horrendous nature of the period but fails to provide much necessary political analysis, without which it is even more deeply depressing than it might have been.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

A garbled account of state-aided terror that sheds little light on these dogs of war.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Independent

While Leth's guerrilla-style documentary is gripping to watch, it isn't particularly well-structured and constantly loses focus

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Sun Online | Comment
Sun Online

With a film this frenzied and passionate, it is difficult to tell just what's going on for a sizeable chunk of the running time.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | Comment
Daily Mirror [UK]
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Ghosts of Cité Soleil

Extraordinary access to the documentary subjects allows a frightening world to come to life.

April 10, 2008
gor41
Gordon A

Super Reviewer

haunting, stunning, and as real as it gets. i had a spiritual expirience watching this film that cannot be described with words, one of the most impactful films i have ever seen. this is the sort of film that reminds people that the world is a horrible place for many who live in it. a film about fear, suffering,

December 2, 2007
sanjurosamurai
danny d

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Ghosts of Cite Soleil (UK)
  • Ghosts of Cite Soleil (CA)
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