Kerr-Darwin's+Nightmare


 * Title:** Darwin’s Nightmare
 * Director:** Hubert Sauper
 * Release Year:** 2004


 * What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

This film centers on the matrix of severe problems around the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The lake, which is the largest tropical lake on earth, is now the home to a new fish species. This fish, which was put there as an “experiment”, is in high demand up in Europe. The process by which it is extracted and sent, however, is extremely detrimental to the locals, who suffer from homelessness, disease, hunger, no education and other forms of extreme poverty.


 * What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**

This films primary goal is to show how globalization can be extremely awful, if conducted incorrectly. The example given throughout the film involves developed countries exploitation of developing countries. Although the film doesn’t do much in the way of raw data and facts, it gives perhaps the most moving pathos argument I have ever seen. Instead of simply stating facts about the number of people affected, etc, it actually shows the people themselves living day to day.

The crux of the situation outlined in the film is this. The fish in the lake, although capable of feeding the entire population around the edges of the lake, are fished out every day by underpaid fishermen. They are then sent to a factory to be prepared, which increases the price of the fish past the point where anybody in the lakeside communities can purchase it. They are then all shipped out on an airplane. The plane is packed as full as they can get it; the weight of all the fish is usually over 55 tons per plane. This has caused some of the planes to crash, as the pilots have a hard time taking off at this weight. After the planes leave, carrying with them around 500 tons of fish per day, the millions Tanzanians starve; they are left fighting over whatever couldn’t fit onto the planes. Up in Europe, on the other hand, two million “white people” eat Lake Victoria fish every day.

Much of the film is dedicated to showing the dire poverty in which this system leaves the natives. Death is abundant; because there is no doctor and not enough food, around 15 people die in the riverside community every year, which has a population of about 300 to 400. Prostitution runs amok, as it is one of the only jobs available. This spreads HIV, and those suffering from AIDS are seen everywhere. Children run the streets starving. One scene depicted a group of 15 or 20 kids literally beating each other up over a bite of fish leftover stew. All of this, the film suggests, is due to the fish industry.

The Tanzanian government has done nothing to help the situation. One scene depicts a meeting between Tanzanian government officials and members of the fish trade, talking about how they have brought “stability” to a corrupt region. The government’s stance on the situation seems to be that to solve the problem the fish trade must be increased. This shows a severe lack of capability to evaluate the situation, let alone do anything about it.

One thing which isn’t answered until the end of the film is what the planes bring in to Africa. When asked throughout the beginning, the pilots avoid the question; the closest any of them get to answering is when one of them says that they bring “machinery” into other African countries. It isn’t until the end that you find out that they are bringing in weapons and vehicles of war into countries such as the Congo, Liberia, Sudan and other war torn nations. These weapons are all brought from Russia who has a large weapons trade. To sum it up: guns are flown in while food is flown out, giving the Africans the means of slaughtering each other over the food that is left.


 * What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

This film has perhaps one of the best most moving of any documentary I’ve watched. Without much narrative, the film lets the images do the talking to great effect. Perhaps the most moving scene was that of the fish skeleton fields, where people take the carcasses of fish that have been discarded by the factories and hang them up to dry. There were many shots of the folks who make a living there, walking barefooted through maggot ridden carcasses just to find a scrap of food to eat. Another compelling section involved one of the prostitutes that they followed. During their stay, she talked with them about how stuck she was; there was no place for her to go, and nothing she could do other than continue to be a prostitute. By the end of the film crews stay in Tanzania, however, she had been murdered by one of her customers, an Australian pilot who suffered no consequence for his actions. Another scene which was quite compelling was the one mentioned above where the children were fighting over the fish; none of these children had the chance for any formal education or any sort of future, and here they were killing each other over fish carcass stew.


 * What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?**

At times I wished that there were subtitles. This is the only bit that I wasn’t convinced by, as I couldn’t understand what they were saying.


 * What additional information does the film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc?**

This film made me take another look at globalization, and reaffirmed what the movie The Corporation had brought up in regards to corporations externalizing costs. It has makes me want to look for other examples of this, ones which might ring a little closer to home, as I not exposed to Lake Victoria fish. The factory where my shoes were made, for instance would be somewhere I would love to see inside, or the place where my computer was assembled.


 * What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?**

This film is definitely more effective to those who understand globalization, as this isn’t explained at all during the film. Because of the lack of facts, anybody without this background knowledge would see all of the misery and poverty and not be able to make the connection between that and us. If this film were shown to a child, for instance, they would probably wind up getting upset at seeing all the awful things… and for no reason, as the film wouldn’t improve upon their understanding of how the world works.


 * What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?**

There were no points of intervention of any kind suggested by the film. One can only conclude that they should research where their stuff comes from in order to help prevent this kind of mistreatment of human beings.


 * What** **could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?**

Although the lack of facts and narration lend to a very pathos based argument, which is compelling to a certain crowd, having more information might have given the film the possibility of moving a larger audience. If, for example, the narrator had asked deeper questions to the owner of the fish plant or had been allowed to talk with the government officials, much more information about the situation would have been made available.