About three-quarters of "Darwin's Nightmare" is a damning study of the unintended consequences of messing with Mother Nature in the name of economic development.
It is a comprehensive examination of the natural and human ecosystem --fisherman and their families, processing factory workers and owners, corrupt officials, exporters, and the desperate men, women and children attracted to money -- around Lake Victoria, whose very name symbolizes the vestiges of colonialism as Tanzania becomes a pawn in the new global capitalism. Dedicated documentarian Hubert Sauper does not take the easy fictional movie out of pointing a finger at a single company (like "The Constant Gardener") or even a single industry (like "Syriana"), but looks at the whole system of exploitation and human failure.
It is a mostly fascinating look all around a boom town created by the extraction of a natural resource for export (that ironically was unnaturally introduced into the lake, the Nile perch). While it is refreshing that the European Union is the Great Satan here and not the United States for a change, Sauper implies this is a new or uniquely African situation rather than repeating the sins from centuries of mercantilism around the world since the 16th century, as the ghosts of native populations in the Americas and Asia would bear witness. (It was Benjamin Franklin's observations of the colonial populations that inspired Malthus who inspired Darwin.) He implies a recognition of how cultural imperialism is part of this economic change by including extended looks at the work of Christian missionaries. It is disheartening that by the 21st century, though, we still have not learned how to prevent or fix such calamities.
Sauper is at his strongest when he sticks to what is unique here. He is weakest at his most visually manipulative, lingering the camera on the maimed, dead and dying as, to be brutally frank, the same shots could be made of other African disasters such as famine and AIDS, though those are complicating factors here as well. In terms of employed people who do benefit from the cash crop, we hear more from the well-fed company owners and contractors than the factory workers.
He is unusually sympathetic to the prostitutes he interviews and really finds their humanity, which I have otherwise only seen in Nahid Persson's documentary about Iran "Prostitution Behind the Veil."
He is otherwise unfair to many of his informants by not bringing along a translator so they are forced to try to communicate in broken English, which of course makes them sound overly simplistic. This is particularly true for the mercenary pilots from former U.S.S.R. countries (invariably identified as Russian even if they are from the Ukraine etc.) who dangerously carry overloaded planefuls of processed fish from the primitive local airport to Europe as he relentlessly hones in with them on where those supposedly empty planes are really coming from and what they are carrying in, pushing them to reveal gun trading like in "Lord of War."
While he resists including any ironic health promotions on why fish consumption is going up in the E.U., he effectively moves his perspective wider as he reports on the famine in other parts of the country while the fish planes stream out. But, surprisingly, one of the weakest interviews is with a local print journalist who evidently first uncovered the links but who goes on a long screed against non-governmental agencies as war and food profiteers. It is also a weak technique to have an ex-school teacher (who for an unexplained reason appears now living in a shantytown) read aloud from newspaper articles and we're supposed to believe unprompted goes on about survival of the fittest. Clips from other organization's films are used effectively for background information.
The subtitles are excellent, not just that they are black-lined which could be a model for low-budget foreign-language films, but are visible even when people are speaking English, as between the accents and sound quality it would be difficult to understand them. However, the film will be just as effective on TV/DVD/video as it comes across like a television news special.
It is a comprehensive examination of the natural and human ecosystem --fisherman and their families, processing factory workers and owners, corrupt officials, exporters, and the desperate men, women and children attracted to money -- around Lake Victoria, whose very name symbolizes the vestiges of colonialism as Tanzania becomes a pawn in the new global capitalism. Dedicated documentarian Hubert Sauper does not take the easy fictional movie out of pointing a finger at a single company (like "The Constant Gardener") or even a single industry (like "Syriana"), but looks at the whole system of exploitation and human failure.
It is a mostly fascinating look all around a boom town created by the extraction of a natural resource for export (that ironically was unnaturally introduced into the lake, the Nile perch). While it is refreshing that the European Union is the Great Satan here and not the United States for a change, Sauper implies this is a new or uniquely African situation rather than repeating the sins from centuries of mercantilism around the world since the 16th century, as the ghosts of native populations in the Americas and Asia would bear witness. (It was Benjamin Franklin's observations of the colonial populations that inspired Malthus who inspired Darwin.) He implies a recognition of how cultural imperialism is part of this economic change by including extended looks at the work of Christian missionaries. It is disheartening that by the 21st century, though, we still have not learned how to prevent or fix such calamities.
Sauper is at his strongest when he sticks to what is unique here. He is weakest at his most visually manipulative, lingering the camera on the maimed, dead and dying as, to be brutally frank, the same shots could be made of other African disasters such as famine and AIDS, though those are complicating factors here as well. In terms of employed people who do benefit from the cash crop, we hear more from the well-fed company owners and contractors than the factory workers.
He is unusually sympathetic to the prostitutes he interviews and really finds their humanity, which I have otherwise only seen in Nahid Persson's documentary about Iran "Prostitution Behind the Veil."
He is otherwise unfair to many of his informants by not bringing along a translator so they are forced to try to communicate in broken English, which of course makes them sound overly simplistic. This is particularly true for the mercenary pilots from former U.S.S.R. countries (invariably identified as Russian even if they are from the Ukraine etc.) who dangerously carry overloaded planefuls of processed fish from the primitive local airport to Europe as he relentlessly hones in with them on where those supposedly empty planes are really coming from and what they are carrying in, pushing them to reveal gun trading like in "Lord of War."
While he resists including any ironic health promotions on why fish consumption is going up in the E.U., he effectively moves his perspective wider as he reports on the famine in other parts of the country while the fish planes stream out. But, surprisingly, one of the weakest interviews is with a local print journalist who evidently first uncovered the links but who goes on a long screed against non-governmental agencies as war and food profiteers. It is also a weak technique to have an ex-school teacher (who for an unexplained reason appears now living in a shantytown) read aloud from newspaper articles and we're supposed to believe unprompted goes on about survival of the fittest. Clips from other organization's films are used effectively for background information.
The subtitles are excellent, not just that they are black-lined which could be a model for low-budget foreign-language films, but are visible even when people are speaking English, as between the accents and sound quality it would be difficult to understand them. However, the film will be just as effective on TV/DVD/video as it comes across like a television news special.