PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND
US/Japan, 2021, 103 minutes, Colour.
Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes, Bill Moseley, Tak Sakaguchi, Charles Glover.
Directed by Sion Sono.
This is exotic science-fiction, science-fantasy, futuristic, apocalyptic, to say the least. It is one of those films that one could say it has to be seen to be believed.
The director is Sion Sono, a poet who became a film director, quite prolific in a variety of styles. In fact, this enterprise is an exercise in a prolific variety of styles.
It is as if we were transported to a variation on Westworld, a Western town in Japan of the future, looking like a film set, inhabited by strange mixture of Americans and Japanese, sometimes robotic in their actions, the governor (Bill Moseley) a complacent exploitatively arrogant leader, set up with an elaborate harem of sex slaves (introduced in a dream sequence of escape) and protected by a samurai warrior. Later, audiences will probably thinking a lot about the Mad Max world, even to the song “we don’t need another hero” (remembering Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). But, in fact, they really do – and he is the most unlikely hero.
He is played by Nicolas Cage. Cage has made a later career playing hyped up manic heroes and villains – and this one is up there amongst the top! The first time we see him he is brandishing guns and shouting, along with his friend Psycho, robbing a bank. But, he is captured and imprisoned. Eventually, the governor sets him to find one of the missing women, allegedly his niece, Bernice (Sofia Boutella), dressing him in a powerful suit but with explosives in key places to control him (and some of them do explode!).
In a way this is a no-holds-barred creation, drawing on all kinds of action genres, enjoying film play with its conventions. It draws on Japanese myths. It draws on Hollywood action. It draws on the saviour hero figure, unlikely as he may seem. There are martial displays, swordfights.
The Hero makes his way to a remote and desolated community where some of the escapees have taken refuge even though they are in catatonic states. The community has quite a number of mutant characters. This is post-Apocalyptic, nuclear themes, an accident, waste and camp termination. And there is a white literate Guru advising the group, but pessimistic that they will ever escape.
The Hero, despite the explosions and injuries to his body, rescues Bernice, leads an uprising, makes his way back to confront the governor for, not exactly a high noon shootout, but a deadly confrontation and samurai sword fighting.
So, a wildly imaginative adventure, perhaps a bit much (well, not perhaps, perhaps) for the average audience but for those who enjoy going beyond conventions, and more than a touch of the weird.
