(Canada, 92 min.)
Dir. Liz Marshall
Programme: Canadian
Spectrum (World Premiere)
“I’m trying to save the world,” whispers photographer
Jo-Anne McArthur to a colleague as he marvels at the images she has placed
before him. McArthur turns art into activism one still frame at a time by
travelling the world and capturing the mistreatment of animals through her lens
for a massive project entitled “We Animals”. Her pictures are stunning
aesthetic feats, especially for how well they juxtapose the personality of our
four-legged friends with the inhumanity of our industrialized factory farms and
food industry. McArthur’s passion and conviction ring true in every frame of The Ghosts in Our Machine, making it one
of the strongest offerings at Hot Docs this year.
The Ghost in Our
Machine, however, gives McArthur’s photography the compelling display it
deserves. The film follows McArthur as she executes several photo-shoots aimed
at bringing empathy to non-human animals in captivity. McArthur captures the
personality in these animals against the cold, industrial backdrop of their
confines. The photographs show that animals offer many of the same emotions
that humans bring to pictures: a sense of pride can be seen in the poise of a
newly freed beagle, while the eyes of a pig reflect fear as it stands in a
cramped truck.
Other noteworthy sequences include a visit to a farm for
rescued animals and a portrait of a couple that creates a family by rescuing
beagles from a test lab. The sanctuary scenes show how much better non-human
animals can flourish when they’re given open spaces and conditions akin to
their natural habitats. The same practices, in theory, could be used by many
farms in developed countries, but the western world opts for cost and convenience,
as even many organic farms offer inhospitable conditions for the animals as
they’re processed quickly and efficiently in order to cater to the over-consumptive
habits of developed countries. The beagle adoptees present the long recovery
that awaits animals that escape the machine, as Abbey, their newest beagle,
can’t even climb a flight of stairs when she arrives in her new home. Both
sequences propose practical and effective habits that ordinary citizens can
take a stand for animal rights and contribute in meaningful ways.
The importance of McArthur’s art is captured best in one
excellent sequence that brings her to Europe where she documents the conditions
of a factory farm for foxes with a fellow animal rights activist. McArthur and
her colleague plan the shoot methodically and then go in for the attack during
the early morning hours. The documentary shows the conditions of the farm
firsthand—small overcrowded cages and foxes in need of care and treatment—and
Marshall intercuts the footage with still images of the photographs that
McArthur captures in the sequence. The way McArthur’s camera captures the foxes
differently than the film’s camera does is a thing of beauty. The sequence
stresses the power of McArthur’s photographs, which look twice as compelling
when framed within the context in which they were shot.
McArthur likens herself to a war photographer in one scene
of The Ghosts in Our Machine, but the
comparison might not be hyperbole. Director Liz Marshall (Water on the Table) follows McArthur along some fascinating and
revealing reconnaissance missions that feel comparable to the taught research scenes in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. Hunting down factory
farms might not seems as tricky as ferreting out Osama bin Laden, yet the
methodical intuition and inspiring urgency that McArthur invests in her work
isn’t too far from the conviction of Jessica Chastain’s Maya. There’s a war for
to be fought for the rights of non-human animals, The Ghosts in Our Machine proposes, as the rights of all earthly
creatures might be the next stage in human morals.
If The Ghosts in Our
Machine bears even the slightest hint to Zero Dark Thirty, then it’s a blood relative to last year’s animal
doc Bestiaire by Denis Côté. Looking
into the eyes of non-human animals with a compassionate, observational gaze,
both Ghosts and Bestiaire highlight straightaway how wild animals aren’t meant for
a life of industrialized confinement. Both films show the emotions and
personalities of animals as they live in man-made surroundings. Marshall’s doc
exceeds Côté’s, however, because it puts the onus on its audience to
acknowledge that it’s simply our intellect that sets us apart from these
creatures and that we should use this advantage for kindness and compassion,
and not for profit and consumption.
Marshall’s rendering of McArthur’s project is a worthy
portrait. The Ghosts in Our Machine
is as impeccably composed as its subjects’ photographs. Handsomely shot by a
team of four cinematographers—Nick de Pencier, John Price, Iris Ng, and
Marshall herself—and seamlessly edited by Roland Schlimme and Roderick
Deogrades, The Ghosts in Our Machine
offers top-notch filmmaking. Thanks to the extensive coverage Marshall provides
for each scene, The Ghosts in Our Machine
has the look and tempo of a Hollywood thriller—hence the reference to Zero Dark Thirty—and the convincing
insight never feels the slightest bit like a lesson.
The film, which credits all the non-human animals that
appear in the film alongside their human animal co-stars, is bound to engage
its audience with its dramatic look at the underbelly of contemporary
commodification. Jo-Anne’s sympathetic story and inspiring passion could easily
change the way many viewers look at animals. Whether they’re feed,
entertainment, or domesticated friends, animals deserve to enjoy many of the
same rights we do.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Ghosts in Our
Machine screens:
Sunday, April 28 – 6:30 pm at the Bloor
Wednesday, May 1 – 11:00 am at the Isabel Bader
Saturday, May 4 – 11:00 am at the Bloor
Update: The Ghosts in Our Machine opens in Ottawa at The ByTowne Sept. 23. Subject Jo-Anne McArthur will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer questions.
Please visit www.hotdocs.ca for more info on films,
tickets, and show times.
