The Ghosts in Our Machine

The Ghosts in Our Machine is a brilliant look at the relationships that humans have with the animals that we see, or deny the existence of, every day. We see and get to know each of them through the lens of Animal Rights photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, we feel her emotion as her photographs tell a story few people know, and fewer want to hear. There is a beautiful balance of sorrow and joy in the film, and a hope that Jo-Anne's work with We Animals, and this film, will change the world for animals.

Anyone can watch this film and learn more about how they can become a part of the change. The films robust social media campaign provides support and resources on changes that anyone can make in their everyday life to help make the world a better place. For themselves, and for the Ghosts.

There's a profound and stark beauty to this movie, despite the horror of its subject matter.

I saw this at the Melbourne premier in 2014 and was truly mesmerized. The most important movie of it's kind because it can reach across the divide of activists to the general film goer who simply appreciates a well-made documentary and indeed a thriller of a story line. Jo-Anne makes a most sympathetic yet clearly reluctant heroine, my heart ached for her and what she is compelled to do to make the world a better, more just place. A war correspondent indeed.

I cannot rate this documentary highly enough. In short, I think it's stunning and should reach a much broader audience than it does.

Ghosts is a film that offers the hope of attracting those who care and those who don't, a documentary that will embolden the converted while likely influencing more to join the choir (or at least check out the song book). It is a documentary that refuses to preach, instead opting for a beautifully constructed homage to the rest of our kingdom, spilling over with a unique and thoughtful cordiality that is born out of unmitigable love, respect and understanding.

The documentary is a refreshing departure from its more rational-minded predecessors that throw facts and data at us while barraging audiences with violent sounds and images of slaughter and torture. Ghosts instead confronts with the unforgettable grace of animals many of us so easily shut out from our daily thoughts, as industrial capitalism distantly spins its cogs of exploitation on farms, in labs and factories and abattoirs.

These are the ghosts – the winged, the four-legged and the otherwise objectified and disgraced cousins gasping for life below us on the commodity/food chain.

Marshall doesn't throw the sixties wrench into the cogs of the machine, screaming from a mantle of righteousness that what we are doing is morally, ethically, ecologically wrong. Instead, she introduces proximal empathy into the abysmal space between consumers and capital with a powerful effect that hits both the mind and heart with an enduring resonance.

Through the various actions and efforts of the very talented and committed photographer Jo-Anne McArthur the film quietly sneaks into the obscured and horrific spaces of mink farms and other places where animals have had their essence as sentient beings barbarically debased into commodity form, lingering just long enough to occlude forgetting.

Both the photographs and cinematography in the film are stunning, and viewing on a small screen should be avoided – Ghosts is a visual delight, despite the sometimes difficult scenes that unfold. A confident direction shines through in this skilfully shot and tightly edited doc that is also audibly adorned with an awesome score and soundscape. The beauty of the film's artifice somehow does not aestheticize suffering, nor create Hallmark images of the animals documented – instead the richness of sound and images helps us through tough spaces, punctuating moments we might otherwise wish to shut out or alternately, not have registered as worthy of contemplation.

Yet we do not spend too much time in the most violent of animal oppression spaces, and by focusing on the beauty and individuality of the many animals (who have names and personalities) that McArthur documents, including and crucially the relationships between committed humans and the broken and discarded, Ghosts brings us in close and personal and squeezes tight.

It's a warm and inviting embrace that the film offers, one that builds empathy for these creatures over its 90 minutes, and it doesn't relinquish after the closing credits.

I didn't feel yelled at or schooled, but I do feel implicated and educated. To the benefit of Marshall and others who worked on this film (and by extension, to McArthur) those feelings of implication and elucidation are wrapped in beauty, love and understanding.

If I sound warm and fuzzy it's because this film's compassion and sensitivity are comforting sensations that just might be the right mixture needed to deliver a documentary on animal rights that transcends the earlier discussed divide and invites everyone in without compromising its politics, while not shutting out others, in spite of its politics.

This is a beautifully done documentary. If you love animals' it is not to be missed. The four -leggeds, the winged ones, the ones who swim. They are all here, as Humans are here, to live out their lives to the best of their ability. Did you pay attention? Even after suffering, never being shown compassion,no "normal" living space,no care past being kept alive, either long enough to get fattened up for the kill, or long enough to suffer pain and mutation......EVEN THEN the rescued ones,bear no hatred of humans. They deserve LIFE. Life as Creator meant for them. I feel like I may be preaching to the choir... How do you get this movie in the living rooms of Corporate America?

This film puts you at the heart of animal cruelty by humans and those that are fighting for them. It helps to establish a connection and understanding as to why so many people want to help the voiceless. You get to see in their eyes in such a profound and clear way. You feel for them and the pain they endure. I can't think of a more effective way to help people relate to those of us that have dedicated our lives to ending the exploitation of innocent animals. The film is not all sad and depressing though. You also get to see those that have benefited from animal rights advocates through clips of animals that have been rescued. It is so joyful seeing the rescued animals running and playing in a happy and safe environment.