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Explores an unheralded but emotionally affecting issue in a straight-forward and engaging manner.
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While the political implications of the film are provocative, "Sugar" also happens to be an impressive cinematic achievement. This picture has a visual sweep that many docu films lack; the plantations and nearby towns are vividly evoked.
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80It's still difficult to find accurate information about where and when Bill Haney's profoundly disturbing documentary The Price of Sugar will be opening commercially in the United States. Partly this is because the Vicini family, sugar barons of the Dominican Republic, have hired Patton Boggs, a major Washington law firm, to try to halt the film's release, or at least paint it as slanted and defamatory.
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Out of this sorry tale of human trafficking emerges a fascinating portrait of this handsome, pugnacious, one-man NGO, who left a cushy life with his patrician Anglo-Spanish family to work with Mother Theresa and devote himself to the oppressed.
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Still, as compelling as The Price of Sugar is, it also represents a squandered opportunity. A stronger connection could have been made between the film's subject and our own responsibility as consumers.
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80Designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.
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75The film is unabashedly supportive of Father Hartley, presenting him as a stubborn saint, and depicts the wealthy owners as soulless villains. Presumably they have a different story to tell, but we wouldn't know: When the camera's on, none can be found.
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75This documentary has no bells and whistles; Bill Haney, the director and co-writer (with Peter Rhodes), sticks to the facts.
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70A solid and affecting piece of work.
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63Offers yet another example of how a lot of what we consume is produced at somebody else's expense. In this case, it's sugar.
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60Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power.
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