Darwin's nightmare

[mordenkainen]

Maybe this belongs in the movies section. I just saw Hubert Sauper's Darwinآ´s Nightmare and I just wanted to recommend it to those who haven't seen it / discuss it with those who have.

Some time in the 1960's, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world.

Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent.

This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.

I could make the same kind of movie in Sierra Leone, only the fish would be diamonds, in Honduras, bananas, and in Libya, Nigeria or Angola, crude oil. Most of us I guess, know about the destructive mechanisms of our time, but we cannot fully picture them. We are unable to "get it", unable to actually believe what we know.
It is, for example, incredible that wherever prime raw material is discovered, the locals die in misery, their sons become soldiers, and their daughters are turned into servants and whores.

This is the most disturbing documentary I've seen in a long while. It doesn't teach you much about its subject matter. Doesn't make any comments, or interview any "experts" either. Sauper just went there, talked to the people and filmed them. No rationalizations. And if for an hour-and-half you can forget about your own rationalizations you'll get a taste of the pure HORROR of our world.

[mordenkainen]

Right, I suck at reviews :lol:
But really, check it out if you can.