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Darwin's Nightmare
EMAILPRINTCelluloid Dreams / International Film Circuit
Universal acclaim
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 44 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by: Hubert Sauper
Directed by: Hubert Sauper
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 3, 2005
DVD: June 26, 2007
Running Time: 107 minutes, Color
Origin: Austria / Belgium / France / Canada / Finland / Sweden
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Darwin's Nightmare is a tale about humans between the North and South, about globilization and about fish. (Cellulois Dreams)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
Somewhat haphazardly organized yet fascinatingly detailed and enriched by the candor and dignity of its shockingly deprived interview subjects.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
An uncompromising portrait of how global capitalism can exploit an area's resources to the point of near annihilation.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 44 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.
