The Mao Zedong statue of Zhiziluo salutes the New York film critics for their reviews of Ghost Town
We couldn’t be more pleased with this trifecta of fresh reviews from New York critics on the eve of Zhao Dayong‘s Ghost Town‘s weeklong run at the MoMA.
A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times:
Zhao has an exquisite ability to balance words with images… The life stories and household interactions that fill out the film’s three chapters take place against a natural background that is shot beautifully… A miniature epic of the everyday.
Time Out New York‘s David Fear gives the film four stars:
Zhao Dayong’s extraordinary documentary on life in the rural village of Zhiziluo, nestled at the foot of the mountains in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. Never mind the nation’s great economic leap forward; the longer you watch Zhao’s chronicle of the financially destitute and the bureaucratically forgotten, the more you feel that you’re witnessing a country fraying at its edges.
Nick Pinkterton in the Village Voice:
I do not expect to soon find scenes to match Ghost Town‘s mountaintop funeral, the running along after a rowdy exorcism, or the scanning of faces at the town Christmas chorale. His back to prosperity, Dayong finds hallowed ground.
If you haven’t seen what the critics are raving about, make a beeline for MoMA this week. Schedule and ticketing info here.