The critics on Ghost Town

During its premiere at the recent New York Film Festival, Zhao Dayong’s Ghost Town, produced by Lantern Films, received strong praise from film critics. The following is a quick rundown on the buzz.

The Village Voice named Ghost Town among its top five “must see” films of the New York Film Festival, and said that if you give the documentary 15 minutes, “you won’t be able to shut it off.”

Time Out New York placed Ghost Town among its “best picks” for the festival, calling it “one of the fest’s prime discoveries, a rewarding portrait of the rundown Southwest Chinese town of Zhiziluo.”

Philippe Garnier wrote in LA Weekly:

[T]here are always films that somehow fell through the cracks of other festival selections or commercial distribution. Last year, it was The Windmill Movie; this year it was Zhao Dayong’s Ghost Town, a 2008 documentary about an isolated Chinese community that seems to have come from nowhere but proved to be very rewarding, provided one was willing to stick around for two hours and 49 minutes. In 1910, the Lisu people of a remote mountain chain in China were converted by Protestant missionaries, as we learn from a cheery old coot who claims to be the only survivor of the purges exacted by the Red Guards over a period of 30 years. And although you follow him and his pastor son, and the town drunk and his divorced wife, and a host of others, the heart of the film is really how these largely destitute people display more democratic spirit than any Revolutionary caucus: There is a wonderful scene where one man defends someone’s right to preach, “even if he’s a bad preacher.” Another image, of the village church under snow on Christmas Eve, is as unforgettable as it is weird. Hearing “In the Eaves” coming from the church in such a setting makes the image of a forlorn Chairman Mao statue superfluous.

Eugene Hernandez of IndieWIRE said Zhao’s “pensive” and “subjective look at impoverished local life hit home”:

Another pensive new documentary, Zhao Dayong’s “Ghost Town,” was greeted with a Sunday New York Times feature about its outsider status. Independent filmmaking is illegal in China where movies must be approved by the government ahead of production. While looking for a location to shoot a narrative feature, Zhao Dayong found a fading rural town that became the subject for his deliberate, three-hour examination of contemporary life. It’s another unlikely doc that drew tremendous acclaim, even as some called it “too long” or “too slow.” Zhao Dayong’s self-described subjective look at impoverished local life hit home when the filmmaker said that the scenes on screen were close to his own personal living situation.