Two remarkable women have collaborated in the creation of this profoundly unsettling and unforgettable glimpse of the immeasurable suffering being imposed at every instant, all over the planet, on its most helpless and undefended inhabitants. All that agony is being imposed by us, needlessly, and, for most of us, unknowingly. The Ghosts in Our Machine is Liz Marshall’s and Jo-Anne McArthur’s historic attempt to loosen the scales on our own eyes by allowing us to gaze into eyes of our victims.<\/p>\n
They do not try to overwhelm as with graphic images of horrors. Apart from one fleeting, grainy moment toward the end of the film, we witness only the miserable conditions in which the victims are caged and restrained throughout their short, hopeless lives, awaiting their ultimate fates — which are left to the far more merciless medium of our own imaginations and consciences, rather than the camera. The camera is reserved for eye contact with the (countless) Damned and the few Saved — whisked away in the last moment to a Sanctuary.<\/p>\n
Everything is profoundly and passionately thought through in the composition of this powerful and beautiful documentary: The Ghosts are the then-doomed (and now-destroyed) feeling creatures who look us in the eye throughout the movie. The Machine is the industrial complex that breeds, brutalizes and butchers them for the market’s palates, fashions and entertainment. And the market is Us.<\/p>\n
Apart from Liz and Jo-Anne’s formidable artistic skills, we also sense and share their agony at being unable to rescue their subjects, and their yearning to mobilize us to power down and phase out this monstrous machine. <\/p>\n
One would have to be a psychopath to witness this film and leave saying and feeling: well, it’s too bad, but that’s the way it’s going to have to be: my palate, fashion and entertainment are worth those animals’ continuing agony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two remarkable women have collaborated in the creation of this profoundly unsettling and unforgettable glimpse of the immeasurable suffering being imposed at every instant, all over the planet, on its most helpless and undefended inhabitants. All that agony is being imposed by us, needlessly, and, for most of us, unknowingly. The Ghosts in Our Machine … <\/p>\n