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Darwin's Nightmare
Celluloid Dreams / International Film Circuit


7.6

based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 43 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Darwin's Nightmare is a tale about humans between the North and South, about globilization and about fish. (Cellulois Dreams)

GENRE(S):	Documentary
WRITTEN BY:	Hubert Sauper
DIRECTED BY:	Hubert Sauper
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 26, 2007 Theatrical: August 3, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	107 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Austria / Belgium / France / Canada / Finland / Sweden
LANGUAGE(S):	English / Russian / Swahili (with English subtitles)

Best Documentary Award, 2004 European Film Awards

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

But for all its bleakness, Nightmare is a film that demands to be seen. In unflinching terms, it captures the hellish existence endured by the many so that the few may wallow in privilege.

100

The New Yorker David Denby

If Sauper is fired up by anti-globalist conviction, his instincts as an artist and as a man rule out any kind of rhetoric or cheapness. Darwin’s Nightmare is a fully realized poetic vision.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Filmmaker Sauper put himself in harm's way numerous times to get so inside the situation, and the intimacy of his technique, his willingness to avoid hectoring voice-overs and simply talk quietly with his subjects, adds compelling believability.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Mr. Sauper has produced an extraordinary work of visual journalism, a richly illustrated report on a distant catastrophe that is also one of the central stories of our time.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Darwin's Nightmare strings together cruel ironies into a work of harrowing lucidity. It illuminates the sinister logic of a new world order that depends on corrupt globalization to put an acceptable face on age-old colonialism.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Sauper's delicately horrific documentary is a short, sharp slap in the face of the developed world, and a long overdue one at that.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Both blunt and complex, Sauter's illustration of economic Darwinism at its most primal and unforgiving is a harrowing vision of human life as collateral damage in the modern global economy.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.

Variety David Rooney

Somewhat haphazardly organized yet fascinatingly detailed and enriched by the candor and dignity of its shockingly deprived interview subjects.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Far more than mere fish tale, Sauper's dark, devastating documentary profiles a socio-ecological nightmare with unimaginable consequences, and it's one of the best films about the ugly reality of the global marketplace.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

An uncompromising portrait of how global capitalism can exploit an area's resources to the point of near annihilation.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Among the most depressing films ever made...It's a stomach-turning tale of globalization at its very worst, though what any of this has to do with Darwin is unclear to me.

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

At times quite powerful.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

As confusing, horrific and unsettling as a nightmare can be, at least you wake up and the memory fades. Darwin's Nightmare, tragically, is not a dream, but rather a haunting, beautifully made reality check well worth waking up to.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Sauper captures a world in which life and death are treated with equal practicality - and disregard. His camera is unflinching; your gaze may not be quite so steady.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Darwin's Nightmare points an all-purpose finger at globalization, yet the movie, as raw and vivid as it is, meanders terribly and - bigger problem - never hints at how the disasters it shows us are rooted in Africa's colonial past.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Darwin's Nightmare would be just another "ain't it a shame" piece were it not for the way Sauper gradually reveals how all this human misery might play out.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The documentary tries to pin Africa's suffering on capitalism, but dances around the real problem. Africa starves because corrupt governments own the natural resources and export them to buy weapons to keep their people at bay.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lee H. gave it a7:
it takes a while for this movie to focus- but when it does it's powerful. The villain is not so much global capitalism as it is us humans. How people can take a wondrous natural resource like Lake Victoria and change it to a hell hole. But as a documentary, the powerful parts are drowned out by the tedious, boring, and boring parts.

Nikko gave it a9:
so Kyle Smith from The New York Post does not think capitalism is the 'real' problem or greed probably for that matter, but then says in the same tiny paragraph that the 'real' problem is the west buying the stuff they are selling etc - pray tell Kyle, what would you call that? The buying of signifiers of wealth etc from the poor by the rich using available monetary services etc etc - well, shit on me Kyle, I call that capitalism. You moron. No surprises you are a new york critic then? Nope. Ignorance is bliss.

Pat M. gave it a10:
I've watched a lot of documentaries - and this is one of the best I've seen. The unobtrusiveness of the interviewer adds to the hoesty and impact of the film. I did not know anything about what had happened to Lake Victoria - so when I first started watching it I was kind of confused - as I watched I started to realize what was happening there - and I felt so sad and angry, so I can only imagine how sad and angry the people there must feel. I

Ina T gave it a5:
The topic is certainly worth noticing, but instead of clearly spotlighting the issues, the document remains a hard to follow, badly edited and protracted collection of interviews, seeming more confusing than unbiased.

Gian N. gave it a10:
This film captures intuitively the complexity of real life and misery of contemporary Africa and its relation with the globalized world. It can only be wished that this film is better used in the near future by professionals of development and international cooperation to solve some of the causes of misery: trade of weapons, lack of institutional building (both in civil society and government) and laisser-faire in economics. This films merits to be taken serious not only by people, but also by organizations.

Joey A gave it a10:
I saw it on TV last night and at times I was almost sick. It's movies like these that make you think that make you realize cinema and art still matter and communication can still happen in this over-media-blitzed western world. I see these perch fillets in the supermarket, all nicely wrapped and clean and pink. It makes you wonder about the stories behind all the other clinically pretty stuff we buy and consume in our air-conditioned stores. Connect the dots to the maggots in the rotting fish carcasses and the wars in Africa. At the end of the movie there's a big storm coming. It's like a vision of what's coming. Darwin's nightmare isn't over: it's just begun.

Mike M. gave it a0:
“Darwin’s Nightmare” film was produced by a freelance journalist of Austrian descent based in France. The film maker,[***SPOILERS***] Mr. Hubert Sauper tries to portray that the Nile Perch (Sangara) trade from Mwanza region in Tanzania facilitates poverty, hunger, prostitution, homelessness to children, environmental destruction, loss of lake Victoria biodiversity and human rights abuse in the area. He further claimed that Nile Perch business in Tanzania is a door for importing ammunition to the Great Lake Region. Mr. Sauper claims that high quality Nile Perch fillets are exported to the European market while the locals are left with fish remains, specifically the head and skeleton, popularly known by the Kiswahili word ‘mapanki’. Mr. Sauper mentions Christmas festivities during which European children enjoy high quality food (fish fillets) while their counterpart in Africa instead of such food staff received ammunition. Mr. Sauper in his film inserts a number of scenes that are not natural (cooked one). This implies that inserts were done purposely so as to achieve the intended goal of cheating and tarnishing the good image of Mwanza and Tanzania in general. Mr. Sauper had an intention of showing that Nile Perch business in Tanzania is the main cause of poor living conditions and source of various ailments to the people who reside around lake Victoria.

Darwin's Nightmare Celluloid Dreams / International Film Circuit

Darwin's Nightmare
Celluloid Dreams / International Film Circuit