Darwin’s Nightmare (2005) – DVD

***/**** Image C+ Sound C+
directed by Hubert Sauper

by Walter Chaw Told almost completely in extended wordless sequences, Darwin's Nightmare covers how the introduction of feral perch to Tanzania's Lake Victoria to sate a ravenous European market has spelled doom for locals enlisted ("enslaved," director Hubert Sauper would insist) to harvest it at subsistence levels, forcing them to scavenge among the discards for sustenance. Even worse, Sauper suggests that arms traffickers use the incoming cargo planes–the very ones entrusted with the export of the perch–to smuggle their own illicit wares and thus further exploit stricken Africa. We learn that the perch were introduced into the lake as a means of supplementing an over-fished native supply to ironically-fantastic results–a perch boom that on-message factory owners and government officials proclaim as an economic miracle.

It's a perfect metaphor for the slavering beast globalism, flashing its dread pearlies in the dark of the Dark Continent and consuming all native opponents in its noisome wake. And Sauper–while begging for a more ruthless editor–never diminishes the quality of his righteous outrage. The most powerful scenes uncover the appalling conditions for the factory workers, labouring in desperate need of medical care and education (a local pastor interviewed preaches against condom use while his flock mingles with a pack of HIV-filthy prostitutes) and unable to afford the perch they filet for their faceless masters overseas. Glimpses of lost children huffing burning packing materials littering the Tanzanian landscape provide an even grimmer fate, if possible, for subsequent generations. A hopeless piece about a hopeless situation, Sauper's picture is an impressionistic razor blade, blazing red trails through the flesh of ignorance/arrogance–but to what end? Too often, it seems like the only thing outrageous truths accomplish is casting a pall over the outlook of the already-outrage-fatigued.

THE DVD
by Bill Chambers Maple releases Darwin's Nightmare on DVD in Canada letterboxed at 1.78:1. There's really no excuse for the lack of anamorphic enhancement in this day and age, but that seems to be the fate in store for most left-leaning documentaries no matter how prestigious. (See also: Occupation: Dreamland.) Representing a direct-from-tape transfer, the image itself would never be mistaken for the camcorder original but is relatively defect- and artifact-free. (Shimmer unfortunately rears its head from time to time.) While English subtitles rectify the problem of the accompanying Dolby 2.0 stereo audio sometimes sounding harsh to the point of distorting speech, be advised that they're not optional.

107 minutes; NR; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English/Russian/Swahili DD 2.0 (Stereo); CC; English subtitles; Region One; DVD-5; Maple