Darwin's Nightmare [DVD] [2005]

DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE is truly that: a nightmare. Filmed on-location in Tanzania along the banks of the massive Lake Victoria, director Hubert Sauper puts the lens of his camera in the face of everyone involved in this human atrocity ...from those who aid it, to those at the bottom of its global circumstances.

The focus is on the gigantic Nile Perch, a freshwater fish of unbelievable size, who was unfortunately introduced to Lake Victoria and has decimated the native fish population. On the upside, however, is the new economy brought by the Nile Perch. Million dollar fish packing operations abound and jobs are available ...but only to a few hundred natives. The remainder live in squalor and on starvation's doorstep. All of the fish, without exception, is flown out of Africa to richer, more affluent, neighboring continents (mostly Europe). The money being made by the IMF and a few select companies is impressive, but can it last?

Mr. Sauper has done something extraordinary. Without putting in any bias, he has allowed this story to unfold on its own. I've never, EVER, seen a documentary like this. I was appalled by the educational system in Tanzania (basically nonexistent) and yet startled by the realization that none of the Tanzanians know or care about the globalization that is causing much of their problems (again, an educational issue). One of the natives that Mr. Sauper interviewed even wished that war would spill over from Angola and into Tanzania so that he could have "better work". Incredible!

AIDS, of course, is an ever present item in Africa, and Tanzania is no exception. But the additional problem here is that there are few facilities to care for the infected. On many of the large islands on Lake Victoria, there are no doctors, hospitals, or dispensaries. Prostitution is widespread as women become widowed and have no source of income. Children are on the street, fighting for fists full of rice, early victims of AIDS after losing their parents. And what is the world doing about this ...?

The hidden side-story in the documentary is "what's on the planes when they land in Tanzania." High-level officials say, "Nothing." But truth be told (by one of the pilots interviewed) sometimes weapons are shipped in on the planes, destined for war-torn areas of Africa. No food. No humanitarian supplies. Nothing else makes it in to Tanzania. We (the world) take from Africa, and all we give it is more death and destruction. This isn't stated directly in the film, but is easily surmised through the interviews.

Finally, there's the airport. Almost as much a character in the film as anyone, this landing field (I hesitate to call it an airport) is a ramshackle building with flies, bees, and broken equipment, resulting in many airliner mishaps throughout the years. A testament to the unspoken fact that the world has no intentions of developing this area. We'll take until there's nothing left, then we'll leave Tanzania and her people to her final verdict. Death!

I agree with the main point Hubert Sauper is trying to make with this film: that globalization, the increasing interconnectedness linking people and places around the world, has led to a deeply unjust economic order, in which a lucky few reap most of the benefits while most everyone else sees their living standards going from bad to worse. This argument I accept wholeheartedly, but I was disappointed by the manner in which "Darwin's Nightmare" tries to convey it.

Sauper brings his camera to the shores of Lake Victoria and talks with a bunch of people: a night watchman, a fish processing plant owner, a journalist, some fishermen, some bar girls, some Ukrainian cargo plane crews, and some street children. (These are the ones we see, anyway.) The pilots and the plant owners are doing okay, but everyone else seems to be facing greater misery and insecurity. This commerce raises some profound ironies: for one, Tanzania is exporting thousands of tons of Nile Perch fillets to Europe while millions of its own citizens are facing famine because they are too poor to buy the food available in the markets; for another, the planes that come to bring Lake Victoria's fish to Europe arrive empty, or sometimes even bringing arms to fuel Africa's bloody conflicts. A meeting of wealthy exporters and trade officials takes place on a posh hotel veranda while crippled children fight over food on the dusty street below.

Sauper's methods pack an emotional punch, but also leave the film open to criticism. Why doesn't he speak to a broader sample of Tanzanians? Why does he allude to issues like the Nile Perch's environmental impact or the arms trade but fail to follow up on them? Most importantly, why does he rely solely on anecdotal evidence to get his message across? The "big picture" is hinted at and only fleetingly glimpsed.

I ordered this DVD to show to students in a course on globalization. Like me, they found it disturbing and evocative, but less compelling than others we'd watched on similar themes. (Stephanie Black's 2001 documentary "Life and Debt," about globalization's impact in Jamaica, was much more effective in this regard.) Those who are inclined to accept Sauper's thinking may come away wanting more, and those inclined to be skeptical will find his case easier to dismiss, which is a shame, because it deserves to be hammered home in the most powerful way possible.

This film is phenomenal. By using the allegory of the predator fish Sauper hits the nail on the head as to how the dynamics of "survival of the fittest" affect our lives. The quote from the Ukrainian pilot sums it up: "African kids get tanks and guns for Christmas, European kids get grapes".

By showing how the unfair balance of trade locks people into poverty we are able to revisit the colonial past of every place that European business has touched. This story could have been the Spanish conquest of South America, the Dutch invasion of the far east/Indonesia or the story of North America.

Saupers gentle hand, softly, gently drawing out the story from real lives, takes us on an unforgettable journey with no easy answers or exits. Every player in the system only sees their part and only when the viewer pulls together the whole process of destitution does the horror become evident. The horror is that every one of us in involved in the same ecosystem of destruction.

What this documentary achieves is to expose the reality that has driven recent cinema blockbusters such as "Lord of War" and "Syriana". The medieval conditions of rotting fish dumps, where people fight for scraps of fish bones and brains (with maggots still crawling on them) should strike horror into the heart of every thinking person. How can it be that in these times, where the freight plane pilot scans through digital pics of his personal diary of family and terror, such scenes of primitive destitution play just under the surface.

Striking, stunning and the true horror of brilliant documentary exposure.