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10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 JUNE 2018 FILM A strong selection of documen- taries characterised this year's edition of the Valletta Film Fes- tival, but the strange and ellipti- cal entry by Australian director Gabrielle Brady – already late of the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year – emerged victorious from that solid bunch, secur- ing the Best Documentary gong at the Festival's ceremony last night. In a lot of ways, the film gath- ers together a number of 'de- sirables' one would expect from any ethically thoughtful and for- mally bold piece of documen- tary work, even if its narrative focus sometimes feels contro- versial. Filmed largely from the point of view of a post traumatic stress disorder counsellor work- ing with displaced migrants on Christmas Island – which is beholden to Australia's often draconian immigration laws – Brady's film juxtaposes the psychologically and politically fraught situation of forcibly uprooted individuals finding a measure of catharsis during their therapy sessions with Poh Lin, and the migration of mil- lions of land crabs making their seasonal journey across the ter- rain – a trajectory overseen by kindly volunteers who take it upon themselves to redirect passing traffic out of the crabs' way. At the risk of coming across as both insensitive and banal given the subject matter, the first thing that will inevitably strike many is just how lush and 'good-looking' Brady's film is. The crab sequences in particu- lar – shot with what I can't help but call loving lens-work by cin- ematographer Michael Latham – simply makes for drool-wor- thy visual immersion. Beyond the natural voyeurism of the National Geographic/Discov- ery Channel approach, there is a keen attention to both colour and movement, with the rapid migration of the crabs across the roads looking like an army of animated measles, and once they reach the forests, the cam- era allows their sluggish mo- tion to show off their hypnotic anatomy at work. The kind of cinematographic work that tru- ly earns the oft-overused tag of 'poetic'. Of course, great as it is to watch and intellectually logical as its inclusion may be, it's also something of an obvious paral- lel, and we could take it to task for being too on-the-nose. But once in the counseling sessions, Brady's approach favours an in- tense close-up lit through suf- fused but strong glares of white – an approach both clinical and sensitive. So that juxtaposition with the crabs feels like an act of compassion; a call towards see- ing these people's displacement as an act of dangerous necessity. In fact, another problematic element of the work – at least, potentially – lies in the fact that Poh Lin is made to play the protagonist of the piece. This choice carries with it the unfor- tunate consequence of essen- tially framing the proceedings from the point of view of the white protagonist – sensitive and well-meaning though she may be. But one suspects – as a Q&A with the director during the film's screening at Spazju Kreattiv on June 12 bears out – that gaining any further ac- cess to the migrants themselves would have jeopardised their already precarious status, and through Poh Lin we're also al- lowed a look-in into the callous bureaucratic tangle that leads to people – people whose stories we hear in judicious detail – to be classed as undesirable things to be kept out at all costs. In a film suffused with lyri- cism and the kind of intangible charm – in the original sense of radiating, talismanic magic – its titular reference stands out as being particularly special. A ritual to appease the 'hungry ghosts', it stems from the herit- age of Christmas Island's Chi- nese migrants – closing the cir- cle of pain, confession and the inexorable link between the nat- ural environment and its human players which makes up the ful- crum of Brady's documentary. HUNGRY GHOSTS HUNGRY HEARTS HUNGRY EYES HUNGRY HIPPOS HUNG OUT TO DRY T H E I S L A N D O F H U N G RY G H O STS ( T B A ) Teodor Reljic ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The verdict Elliptical and immer- sive, Gabrielle Brady's award-winning documen- tary does come with a fair share of visual indulgence and is ever-so-slightly hampered by a framing device that favours the white local over the im- migrants whose story it is meant to survey. But it re- mains a heady experience, elevated by its access to counseling sessions and a truly remarkable cine- matographic approach to the natural world. The Island of Hungry Ghosts was screened at the Valletta Film Festival, where it was awarded the Best Documentary prize Therapist Poh Lin and her daughter on Christmas Island, where she lives and does her best to offer psychological respite to displaced migrants despite draconian immigration policies The winner of the Best Documentary category at the Valletta Film Festival is a uniquely poetic look into the fraught mental space displaced migrants are forced to occupy Finding poetry in limbo