Joko Anwar’s 12th feature Ghost in the Cell has a bit of everything. The Indonesian action-horror-comedy (with occasional dance numbers) is rife with social commentary, and driven by a vengeful spirit with mutilative flair. However, its maximalist delights are spread out unevenly across its 106-minute runtime, so it may be worth tempering your expectations, despite the movie’s promises on paper.
When a prison’s worth of colorful characters start being picked off one by one, and are turned into bloody arts-and-crafts works, a goofy, politically-charged mystery sees them having to work together to figure out the “how” and “why” of the larger premise (as well as the supernatural mechanics). Unlike the Hannibal Lecter-esque human dioramas — which the inmates stumble upon once they’re gloriously, gorily complete — the movie’s pieces take an awfully long time to fit together, even when the setups and payoffs are nakedly visible from miles away.
A purveyor of entertaining genre trash (like the superhero romp Gundala), Anwar draws on both his grimy action experience, as well as his past life as a journalist, and conjures an intriguing framing device. The movie’s opening scenes see Jakarta investigative reporter Dimas (Endy Arfian) filing a late-night exposé on illegal mining practices in Borneo, only for his corporation-friendly editor to chew him out. With Dimas in the adjacent room, his boss catches an eerie reflection of himself that appears to move independently, only for some unseen force to repeatedly make a pin-cushion out of his face before hanging him from the ceiling fan with his own intestines — a disturbing image presented with so much verve that it becomes immediately entertaining.
From there on out, it takes a long while for Ghost in the Cell to return to this premise — which is to say, the “ghost” half of its title remains dormant for a good 45 minutes. In the meantime, Anwar establishes the cell where the rest of the action will (eventually) take place. Bit by bit, he introduces us to the lowlife criminals of Block C, including the square-jawed, charismatic hero Angorro (Abimana Aryasatya), who gets into a physical altercation with ruthless, abusive prison guard Jeffri (Bront Palare) while defending a fellow inmate. Over various cafeteria conversations, we learn about the movie’s broadly sketched supporting cast and their thoughts on Indonesian government, religion and society, arriving in the form of sharp-witted barbs that would’ve made for snappy commentary had they been delivered back-to-back.
Instead, the movie’s runtime is spread thin, playing out significantly slower than it should for a work whose most gonzo moments are exceptionally fun. The whizbang Silat fight scenes are peppered with visual gags, and play out with the action-comedy stylings of Sammo Hung. The exaggerated sentimentality — like when Angorro’s young sons come to visit — becomes the butt of several jokes, but Anwar doesn’t take the characters' emotions any less seriously. The movie’s premise finally fades into view when Dimas arrives under suspicion of his boss’s death, bringing a supernatural presence with him. It isn't long until violent prisoners in his vicinity die exceptionally violent deaths before being turned inside out and displayed on the grimy walls, leading to various prison yard gangs trying to either kill or protect him. Unfortunately, the connective tissue between each of these storytelling modes tends to be a dull, protracted affair, leading to lengthy wait times between something, or anything, really happening.
The gradual discovery of how this ghost works, how to spot its next victims, and how to combat it, are in totality a lethargic affair. But once the specifics finally fall into place — in short: something about the presence feeding off negative auras, which once can counteract with calming expressions like prayer or dance — the film is finally, mercifully, off to the races. Factional prison riots devolve into hilarious chaos, despite Anwar only occasionally taking visual advantage of all the imaginative ideas at play (save, perhaps, for the ghost taking a form sure to trigger trypophobia).
The loaded political commentary is mostly gestural, and arrives in the form of blunt dialogue. But as a work of broad comedy aimed at equally broad social messaging, Ghost in the Cell at least manages to place its sentiments in the mouths of enough wildly different prisoners (from lowly scammers to anti-corruption academics) to feel all-encompassing. In the process, its concerns over corruption and other top-down social ills do end up vaguely, nominally tied to its supernatural musings, but one downside of this approach is that beyond a point, every character becomes comic relief with the same irreverent, tongue-in-cheek tone that steals attention from the real drama at the movie’s core, about who gets a say in the country’s social structure.
For a premise involving the panoramic disfigurement of the human form, presented with comedic flair, a lot fewer people actually die in Ghost in the Cell than you might expect. At every turn, there’s always something to be disappointed by, just as there’s something waiting to surprise you, like the way Anwar uses the camera’s movement to embody meta-textual jokes about homoeroticism, before swerving headfirst into a moving depiction of genuinely queer angst… which in turn dovetails into a character being hilariously ripped in half and violently flayed. That any of this can be said about the same movie is a wonderful peculiarity, even though it plays out at about half the speed it should. [2.5/5]
Ghost in the Cell is currently playing as part of the Berlin International Film Festival. Visit the festival website for more information.
