Ghosts of Cité Soleil

Directed by Asger Leth

At one point in Asger Leth’s new documentary Ghosts of Cité Soleil, one of the film’s two main subjects looks into the lens and confesses, “I feel like killing you to take your camera.” It’s a startling and scary admission, but not half as startling or as scary as Ghosts as a whole. Never has a filmmaker risked so much to gain access, and Leth’s intrepidness has produced this flawed, yet mesmerizing tale about gang life in Haiti’s most impoverished slum.

The United Nations declared Cité Soleil “the most dangerous place on Earth,” a Port-au-Prince hellhole where heavily armed, doped-up thugs known as chimeres, or ghosts, rule the streets. Children get shot, women get raped and senseless violence erupts on a daily basis. The name of the gang captures the “we’re-already-dead” mentality that ravages this unimaginable dystopia.

In 2004, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide unofficially hired the chimeres to silence opposition parties and control the country through violence. Two brothers, 2pac and Bily, are both chiefs in the gang and loyal Aristide supporters, but as Aristide loses power, the brothers and their fellow enforcers become targets.

2pac, a charismatic, arrogant rapper who proclaims himself “pure mafia,” has more hubris than Icarus or Arachnia, and wants to go down with guns blazing. “Power is a gun in Haiti,” he says. “If you don’t have a gun, you don’t have power.” Bily, the less magnetic and more political savvy of the duo, doesn’t share his brother’s bravado, however. He hopes to one day work his way into the higher ranks of Aristide’s Lavalas party and eventually become president.

Tensions rise between the siblings as the new police chief and American troops clamp down on the chimeres, as both profess the desire to kill the other. Exacerbating the situation is Lele, an ambiguous, blond Frenchwoman and aid worker whom both brothers fancy and who becomes 2pac’s lover. Her motives for being in Cité Soleil are never divulged, as Leth seemingly goes out of his way to conceal her role in this mess. Nonetheless, she provides a voice of common sense in a world where chaos reigns.

The film fails to explore the historical causes for the abjection on screen, and refuses to offer any hope or solutions for improving Haiti. It never mentions any events before 2004, attributing much of the island’s struggles to the current inept leadership. But it’s inability to acknowledge centuries of detrimental foreign occupation that crippled the economy, as well as brutal oppression by the wealthy minority, hinder Ghosts from becoming more than just a sad story. Leth seems content to just show us footage of a world unlike ours, without any extra motives.

But oh what footage, and oh what a world. Cité Soleil is the scariest and most captivating ghost story you’ll see this year.