Darwin’s Nightmare
Studio: Celluloid Dreams, International Film Circuit
Rated: NOT RATED
Website: http://www.coop99.at/darwins-nightmare/
Release Date: 2005-12-01
Director: Hubert Sauper
Screenwriter: Hubert Sauper
WorkNameSort: Darwin’s Nightmare
Our Rating: 4.00
Tanzania’s Lake Victoria is teeming with Nile perch, enormous fish that make their way to the dining tables of millions of eaters per day. But that happy consumption is going on in Europe, where folks can afford to pay for such an indulgence. At home in Africa, the benefits of the perch franchise are largely lost on a local economy that’s geared almost entirely toward extracting the fish from the water and getting it into the hands of foreigners. This quietly outraged documentary (in contention for an Oscar) exposes a country overrun by poverty, AIDS, ecological ruin, busted families and innumerable other social ills, all in the pursuit of “commerce” that benefits Eurocentric interests far more than the inhabitants’. Soliciting commentary from participants at all stages of the process, filmmaker Hubert Sauper happens upon some truly harrowing images, including a woman who’s lost an eye to ammonia poisoning and children zonked out on the inhaled residue of fish-packaging materials. Though slow in spots, the movie slyly introduces a possibility that’s arguably even worse than the economic devastation it chronicles: Those Russian cargo planes, allegedly empty upon arrival, might be carrying something sinister into Tanzania. Steel yourself for 105 minutes’ worth of proof that “survival of the fittest” is a less reliable model than survival of the luckiest or the whitest.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2005.