A man with a dark past is sent to an allegedly cursed place to find and bring back a missing woman.
Experimental, surrealistic, and intricately poetic. Don’t expect to make much sense in the beginning… Or in the middle… Or in the end… I’ll keep it deliberately brief so you can decide for yourselves whether this is your cup of tea or not.
Nicolas Cage and Sofia Butella’s story seems to take place in a dystopic, surrealistic, post-apocalyptic, Westernised Japan stuck (metaphorically) in (a futuristic) time. How did that happen? It doesn’t really matter. Through diverse filmmaking techniques, such as Tarantin-esque and Lynchean, Prisoners of the Ghostland is inundated with surrealistic performances and utterances, as well as oneiric (dreamy) and trippy sequences. Furthermore, the spirit of ancient Greek drama that guides it, from the chorus to the means of expression, adds to the hero’s journey on the way to redemption. In a nutshell, what to expect is a story that doesn’t make too much sense in a film that doesn’t care to explain (not the way you would expect it to, anyway). And neither feels guilty about it nor apologises for it.
For your information… the film faced inevitable setbacks. Director Sion Sono suffered a heart attack, and the film was moved from Mexico to Japan, which delayed the production for about 1 year. It took 17 years for the writer Reza Sixo Safai to make the film, so if it wasn’t for Sion’s health, it still would have been 16. This is the fourth collaboration between XYZ Films and Cage, who, once more, goes into berserk mode. If you are interested, Mandy (2018) and Color out of Space (2019) are equally colourful and crazy. But even they make more sense than this one. Oh, if that’s your thing, don’t forget this one: Willy’s Wonderland (2021)
Cage’s surrealistic acting is unique and his trademark. Love him or loathe him, he has managed to stand out and create a specific fan club that follows him. He even got acting schools to focus on his way of performing, calling him the David Lynch of acting (Lynch has praised him already). Needless to say, Butella is as mesmerising as ever, and, as in previous films, she doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty.
Now that you know, it’s up to you whether you’re going to give it a shot or not.
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