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.
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07/20/07
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Ghosts of Cite Soleil (2007)
81
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Reviews Counted:48
Fresh:39
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Asger Leth risked his life to bring audiences this rare and gritty glimpse at Haitian gangs, poverty and politics.
Theatrical Release:Jun 27, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: An epic portrait of a family and a culture torn apart by poverty and violence, GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL is a powerful and unsettling documentary that takes us inside the lives of the notorious gang... [More]
Director: Asger Leth
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Reviews for Ghosts of Cite Soleil
While Leth’s guerrilla-style documentary is gripping to watch, it isn’t particularly well-structured and constantly loses focus
07/20/07
A moving and profoundly upsetting portrait of life near the bottom of the global power pyramid.
06/27/07
Top CriticWhen it comes to depicting hell on Earth, Ghosts of Cite Soleil burns right through the eyeballs and straight into the soul.
07/13/07
This is a film that burns.
06/27/07
Leth’s gritty, haphazardly edited film plays like a music video, with jagged rap sequences interlaced with urgent handheld Super 8-style footage and a stonking shanty-blues soundtrack.
07/20/07
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.
07/20/07
The 85 minutes of this documentary are searing, not on gore quotient but through an aura of appalling violence in every frame.
06/24/07
[An] indelible documentary, which dives into the brutal heart of a place most people would avoid at all cost.
06/29/07
Viewing the political tumult in 2004 Haiti through the perspective of two gangleader brothers, this powerful docu offers a critique on power, poverty, and the pervasive impact of American pop culture on the wider world.
06/27/07
A daring documentary about two violent young Haitian gang leaders and their lives in a slum that is a truly a hell on earth.
06/27/07
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.
06/27/07
Top CriticThe tone of the movie is excessively in thrall to its admittedly charismatic subjects.
07/20/07
Raw authenticity makes this a strong contender for a Haitian City of God, but it seems too staged and narrow in its focus to properly convince as a documentary.
07/20/07
Cité Soleil is the scariest and most captivating ghost story you’ll see this year.
07/11/07
Consistently riveting thanks to the sense of sheer terror that infuses its best moments.
06/29/07
Interesting and quite well done.
09/10/06
The filth, squalor and constant gang menace are all vividly captured in Ghosts of Cité Soleil, a daring yet wearying piece of 16mm filmmaking, defiantly in the tradition of guerrilla feel-bad cinema.
06/28/07
Fascinating stuff, but this portrait of these scary 'altar boys' is probably the last thing that Haiti's Board of Tourism wants to see in circulation.
07/03/07
Danish filmmaker Asger Leth's gritty documentary is an all-too-real -- and rarely seen -- glimpse into the dark side of Aristide's Haiti.
06/27/07
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