Ghost School: Movie Review

A wonderfully engaging story which pairs the supernatural belief with real-life corruption.

10-year-old Rabia (Nazualiya Arsalan) is getting ready for school and remarks that her uniform is too short. They don’t have money for a new one, so just rip out the bottom hem stitches and it will appear longer, her mother suggests. That works for Rabia, a very sweet, courteous and inquisitive young girl who loves school. When she arrives at school, it’s closed, an official is telling everyone that the teacher has fallen ill because the school is haunted so it has to shut down.		2025 Directed by: Seemab Gul Screenplay by: Seemab Gul Starring: Nazualiya Arsalan
Everyone else seems to accept that answer. Adults believe in the Jinn – a supernatural evil presence that will cause death and destruction, best to just stay away. The school kids don’t really care; Rabia’s fellow girls are happy to not have to go to school and will stay at home and play and plan an older sister’s wedding, meanwhile a boy classmate will go to an all boys’ school in the neighboring village. Rabia though wants to go to school and this haunted excuse doesn’t seem right to her. Ghost schools, as they are called, are a real phenomenon in small rural villages in Pakistan. Corrupt government officials divert money away from public schools and just shut them down saying they are haunted. Educated people will instantly see what’s actually going on, but educated people tend to have to go to a city in the first place to get educated and then don’t return. Leaving poor but well-meaning and hard-working people who don’t know anything other than accepting supernatural superstitions to explain away corruption as bad luck. The film follows Rabia as she attempts to understand what’s actually going on. She tracks down the school teacher (who has to say he’s ill because he refused to bribe his boss), she tracks down a principal who doesn’t believe in education, and she even makes her way to the public office of a district commissioner. Rabia does all this on foot and in her school uniform – a rich deep red and sandy gold which both contrasts and blends in with the very poor, desert-like dirt surroundings of her small village. The film can be a bit slow as we follow Rabia around, but it has an engaging score which perfectly matches Rabia’s current tone, whether it’s curiosity, frustration or fear. Ghost School smartly keeps its focus on Rabia. This is not about the corruption of the Pakistani government or public school system, it’s about an educated young girl trying to make sense of her surroundings. She’s trying to reconcile this belief in the supernatural with that which she can see and understand. Even through her growing frustration, there is a sense of optimism, a beautifully realized magical realism as Rabia has to accept a less than ideal solution if she wants to remain an educated girl. It also indirectly makes some powerful statements comparing class differences in rural and city life and education as a right vs a privilege.