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.
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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
This deeply questionable movie presents itself as a documentary. Actually it is hardly more than an exploitative gangsta rap video about the worst slums of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. Leth's movie is politically and morally illiterate.
07/20/07
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
The tone of the movie is excessively in thrall to its admittedly charismatic subjects.
07/20/07
The ultra-violence of this microcosm [gang] society is what Ghosts is all about.
07/28/07
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.
07/22/07
For a documentary, this film has one of the most gripping narratives of the year.
02/10/07
An expressionistic portrait of a society in violent chaos, the film blends cinéma vérité and newsreel footage to capture a modern-day tragedy with Shakespearean overtones.
07/12/07
Top CriticDanish 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
This is a film that burns.
06/27/07
More horrific than any tale from the crypt Hollywood could conceive.
08/10/07
A spectacularly turbulent portrait of the chaos and bloodshed that have come to define Haiti.
06/20/07
Top CriticThe 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.
06/28/07
Top CriticConsistently riveting thanks to the sense of sheer terror that infuses its best moments.
06/29/07
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 85 minutes of this documentary are searing, not on gore quotient but through an aura of appalling violence in every frame.
06/24/07
There's an immediacy to Ghosts of the Cite Soleil that's exceedingly rare for a documentary of any stripe.
08/24/07
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
Arguably the film romanticises its morally challenged protagonists, but there's little hint of rose-tint in the fear, peril and hopelessness that seem to soak every frame like a cold sweat.
07/17/07
Captured at hair-raisingly close quarters by the fearless filmmakers, the sense of lawlessness grabs the throat and haunts the mind.
07/20/07
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