Island of the Hungry Ghosts

You must see this film. It takes awhile to get off the ground, but once it does, it's incredibly powerful. Devastating.

Great! Loved it! The premise behind this is really what's going on this world today...

Most boring movie (of many) I have seen this year. No wonder it got nominations at Tribeca: the more insignificant, unappealing, lacking of direction, acting, photography and of everything normally contributes to the architecture of a good movie, the more acclaimed by self appointed intellectuals that need to distinguish themselves by so called common mainstream movie audience. The message is: I highly reward this (insignificant ugly) movie because I am an expert, you don't because you're a bumpkin. Migrations of people in modern era is not like crab walkabout. Modern States have rules, laws, cultures that need to be respected. Australia gave a great lesson to other cults and cultures immigrates who wanted to enter the Country and set up new rules based on their specific needs. Multiculturalism is b...sht. You enter a Country, you accept the rules, you don't like them , you're free to leave. Right winged intellectuals (Tribeca to name first that comes to my mind) speak of freedom and love, since speaking is easy and free. No frontiers. no restrictions...free immigration (also because exclusive housing compounds have strict entry checkpoints). This movie is a waste of audience's time. It is not a documentary, it is not a movie, it is not poetical, it is jus bloody boring. Only nice part is Poppy!

ISLAND OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS confronts the impossible situation of the refugee detention centre set up by the Australian government on Christmas Island. It is illegal for any employee of the centre to talk about or report anything about the conditions there. So rather than reportage about all the facts and all the horrors, the filmmaker has chosen instead to make a portrait of the island itself, using metaphor to convey the reality of the detention centre.

It is migration time for the island's red crabs and they are everywhere, most inconveniently on the road, and roadblocks must be set up to protect the crabs from being squashed. I suppose it is natural for beings to migrate in certain conditions.

The local Chinese people, who were the first humans to arrive in the Island 100 years ago, believe there are ghosts on the island who are in between worlds, people who have died but not yet passed on. They burn regular offerings to the ghosts to placate them and help them pass on.

The main character of the film is a sensitive and sympathetic woman who works on the Island as a trauma councilor, guiding the patients gently through the immense pain and confusion of what they have experienced and what they are being forced to live. The sessions with her patients are very moving and her love for them bleeds through into her family life, as the realisation of her powerlessness overwhelms her against the secrecy and bureaucracy of the institution that has no interest in helping these people.

Somehow all this is not depressing. It's delicacy and integrity is such that we must have hope that those concerned will realise that humans are as important as crabs and ghosts.