For Nicolas Cage to deem Prisoners of the Ghostland as “the wildest movie I’ve ever made” is, of course, really saying something. This is the man who starred in Face/Off, after all. And a coterie of other “wild movies” that include Adaptation, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Mandy. More recently, Color Out of Space, Pig and Willy’s Wonderland have also served as continued reminders of Cage’s daringness and “no fucks given” attitude when it comes to the films he’s willing to star in. It is Willy’s Wonderland that bears certain noticeable similarities to this particular Cage role, where, instead of being “Janitor,” he is “Hero.” Somewhat ironic considering that he’s an outlaw who causes the death and destruction of so many. But all “bad” men/outlaws of Cage’s preferred variety are given the chance for redemption, which usually provides the entire premise for one of his movies.
As a “drifter” who doesn’t talk in Willy’s Wonderland, Hero has much the same stoicism—save for when he needs to fight someone. Director Sion Sono’s flair for gore and horror translate into this part Western, part Japanese narrative set in a place called Samurai Town. Where, just on the outskirts is another milieu called Ghostland. Populated by a combination of irradiated denizens and exiled “crazies,” Ghostland is the result of a nuclear waste spill, quarantined off from “healthy” Samurai Town.
But there’s nothing healthy about the way “Governor” (Bill Moseley) runs it. Starting with how he refers to his harem of sex slaves as “granddaughters.” And the slave—or prisoner, if you will—he favors the most, Bernice (Sofia Boutella), has up and run away. Thinking herself free for a split second before she ends up as a prisoner of the Ghostland instead. This is where Hero comes in. After an indeterminate number of years of imprisonment in the wake of Hero and his partner in crime, Psycho (Nick Cassavetes), being apprehended, he’s essentially dug up (from his underground cell) to assist Governor with the task of finding Bernice. A.k.a. he has no choice in the matter and will do exactly as he’s told thanks to a very special tight black leather suit Governor provides him with for his quest. One that’s equipped with detonators that will go off if Hero either 1) starts to “neurotransmit” any sign of wanting to “strike a helpless woman” (since all women are helpless, right?) or 2) gets an erection (ergo the two detonators placed on each testicle). It’s all just par for the Cage-ian absurdist course.
Because so much of Cage’s filmography veers toward the political, Prisoners of the Ghostland naturally has that bent to it, to boot. For, as Cage once stated, “I’m not a politically active actor, but I do think you can do that in your work. As artists, I think that’s what our job really is. I think you can be very selective and careful in your work. I mean, I learned more about the disaster of nuclear power from The China Syndrome.” A prescient reference he made in 2003, long before ever knowing he would star in Prisoners of the Ghostland. A movie during which one learns as much about the harm of ostracism imposed by power and wealth as they might by simply walking from one block of Downtown LA to another. What’s more, how the rich themselves create these “situations” (read: unbearable circumstances) for the poor due to “profitability.” What does it matter if some “nobodies” have to be relegated to the outskirts if it means men like Governor can still get their dividends from nuclear activity?
To compound Hero’s increasing compassion for this population, he realizes that the nuclear explosion was a somewhat direct result of his botched bank robbery with Psycho as the group of translating Japanese women recount how a tanker “burdened with molten nuclear sludge” collided with a truck filled with convicted prisoners, including Psycho. After the crash, “The fire crept into the soil, the ancient polluted earth. Every stone and tree had sucked up the buried poison. The entire city burst into flames!” Leaving only the Ghostland in its wake. The desert of misfit toys. Doomed to be haunted by the onslaught of randomly appearing ghosts, including the aforementioned bus full of prisoners. And yes, you wouldn’t be wrong to point out that suddenly this sounds a lot like Ghostbusters. All of them want to emerge on a more permanent basis, which is why Bernice eventually rallies the others with the reminder, “If we don’t stop them, they’ll break free! They’ll rule the world. Terrorizing and killing. We’ll be their prisoners forever.” This sentiment offers many apropos parallels to real life, specifically with regard to subjugation and oppression, power and powerlessness. And it applies just as much to the ghosts’ authoritarian regime as it does to the likes of Governor. Metaphorically speaking, the ghosts’ are like a representation of the past’s ability to control those in the present (just look at what Putin has latched on to as “reasoning” for an invasion). With the Governor being his own symbol of the vise grip that a lone, culturally irrelevant white man can have on power.
Enoch (Charles Glover), the self-appointed leader of the “cult” that has formed something like a community in order to engage in some type of self-preservation, explains to Hero, “The ghosts save souls like [Bernice’s], at first. The sweetest and youngest. The ghosts exploit their fear. They want power and freedom.” Thus, the scheme to hide prisoners of the Ghostland behind pieces of a mask that make them look like mannequins. It’s all very eerie and unsettling, with seemingly infinite standout scenes created by Sono in terms of their haunting effect and striking use of mise-en-scène.
Realizing that Bernice can’t talk when he first finds her, Hero demands to know the reason. Enoch offers the simple explanation: “The prison has taken something from us all. Our voice, our hope, our courage.” Again, the resonance of a statement like this feels all too real and uncanny within the context of the Ukrainian resistance playing out right at this moment in history.
Hero’s quest to take Bernice out of Ghostland, with or without her cooperation, ultimately leads him right back to Enoch’s enclave, where he’s given a rousing presentation about the origin of how Ghostland came to be. When Hero asks the radiation victims why no one helped them in the aftermath, the Greek chorus-like women reply, “We called to the powerful men in the atomic towers. But the men of the toxic empire could not confess it. They must deny it. Deny them all.” Because if one says nothing, then they admit to nothing. Silence, in effect, being the rich man’s protective suit of armor (in addition to money itself).
In this sense, most of us are prisoners of the Ghostland that is life. This strange, jettisoned part of land in Sono’s film being a grand allegory for the eugenics of the poor. And the increasing ferocity with which the proverbial oppressor wants to stamp out any non-privileged person’s will to carry on.
