Ghost in the Cell

«Ghost in the Cell (Hantu Dalam Sel)» is a feature film by the Indonesian director Joko Anwar, a horror comedy about a high-security prison under a tyrannical warden that is shaken by a gruesome series of murders with artfully and macabrely arranged corpses. The prisoners flee into spontaneous dance duels, unexpected prayers, wild fistfights and Kierkegaard invocations, overcoming their gang rivalries to jointly investigate the murder motive and appease the invisible enemy who seems not of this world. Anwar stages the film as a cheerfully grotesque, disarmingly balanced genre romp between lightness and brutal violence, with a disrespectfully political touch through allusions to exploitation and corruption, and with the force of a painting through his emphatic use of primary colours.