Chris Knipp
04-11-2014, 04:26 PM
Dan Geller, Danya Goldfine: The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/galapagos.jpg
THE MÉNAGE À TROIS: "BARONESS" AND HER TWO MEN
Getting away from it all
Hell is other people, a French wag once said. And add to that, in contemporary pshycho-babble: Wherever you go, there you are. These are the lessons presented in Tha Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden. The new documentary tells a twisted tale starting back in 1929, well researched and judiciously edited to make its complexities and chronology as clear as possible under the circumstances, and using writings, read by actors, of the early settlers of what then was an uninhabited island. The topic is how a group of westerners who chose to settle in an unspoiled part of the world messed things up for themselves and each other. You may find it depressing, or fun, but the central crime-mystery story hardly boring. The only trouble is that Geller and Goldfine have so much information, and so many informants, and can't bear to leave anything or anybody out.
Not fleeing from the Great Depression, unmentioned here, an odd German couple, the doctor Freidrich Ritter and his lover Dore Strauch came to the hitherto uninhabited Galápagos island of Floriana in 1929 to start a new life. Both were married, to other people, and abandoned their shocked spouses and offspring and came to find what they thought would be a peaceful paradise. It wasn’t, of course, not for a minute. Ritter was sorely displeased with Dore’s sentimentality and weakness (she had M.S.) and was verbally abusive to her. He in turn found that the intense struggle to survive in the isolated place left him no time for his passionate hobby, an indulgence in philosophical speculations.
Worse still, two years later, to the grouchy doctor’s great annoyance, another couple came to live on the island, attracted by publicity about Dore and Freidrich. They were Heinz Wittmer, his pregnant wife Margaret, and their teenage son Harry. Not long after came an oddball “baroness” (probably not), Eloise von Wagner, accompanied by two young lovers, one of whom, Rudolf Lorenz, was physically abused by the other two. The baroness, evidently Austrian, had run a shop in Paris with Lorenz, with the other chap, Robert Philippson, possibly a clerk there. Von Wagner planned to start a hotel that would cater to wealthy yachtsmen.
Later, after much more publicity, mostly inaccurate, and involvement of this trio and the others on the island with a well-known philanthropist, scientist, and ship captain, Allan Hancock, whose gifts caused great jealousy and conflict, Lorenz came to the Wittmers and told them the “baroness” and her other boyfriend had hopped a boat to Tahiti, hoping to have more luck starting a hotel there. The Wittmers discovered the “baronness’s” house had all its possessions intact, including her talismanic copy of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, which she had told them she never went anywhere without. The couple was never found, and Lorenz was suspected to have murdered them. He immediately sought to leave the island, and he and his Scandinavian rescuer met a sad end.
It gets a lot more complicated than this -- in fact too complicated -- though this is the juciest story and one about which much information and speculation are provided in the film from multiple sources. These include members of the Angermeyer and De Roy families, who settled on the bigger, inhabited Galápagos island of Santa Cruz, the Angermeyers from Germany in 1935 to get away from Hitler, and the De Roys in 1955 from Belgium. And there is the American Divine family, who also settled on Santa Cruz, and the Cruz family, who settled on the former land of Freidrich and Dore after Freidrich met a sad end following a draught and Dore returned to Europe. All these people have a lot to say about life in the Galápagos and comment on the Floriana affair.
Though newspaper readers of the 1930’s would know otherwise, average citizens may think of the Galápagos Ialands, far off the coast of Ecuador, as isolated nature preserve notable mostly for giant tortoises and iguanas and other rare species.
Clearly this is not the case, and Geller and Goldfine’s film deals with fascinating material about Europeans and Americans settling on remote islands. This means to be a committed work of social anthropology. But the criticism is that however well researched this is, the amount of information would be better presented in a book, with some of the trivial commentary by secondary descendants and locals consigned to the back pages. Indeed various talking heads here have produced books on the islands, some in prose and some in images.
There are also a number of Spanish-speakers, including several local settlers who have written "human histories" of the islands. They strike a mellower note and one wonders: why did so many Germans come here?
As part of the storytelling, the deceased characters’ words are voiced by actors, Cate Blanchett (as Dore), Diane Kruger (as Margot Wittmer), Connie Nielsen (as the "baroness"), as swell as Thomas Kretschmann, Sebastian Kocvh, Josh Radner, and Gustaf Skarsgard (Alexander’s brother). Ms. Blanchett’s name may attract viewers and may have attracted production funding. But frankly, it’s the story that counts, not these voices.
Daniel Geller and Danya Goldfine hae done good work as documentarians. It includes films about Isadora Duncan, the Ballet Russes, Tim Rollins and K.O.S, and most recently, Something Ventured, about venture capital’s astonishing role in giving birth the tho most profitable American businesses of recent times, the ones that reside mainly in California’s Silicon Valley. This time they have provided an odd footnote to twentieth-century history. File under Failed Utopias. But note, most of the people and their descendants didn’t cause the ruckus the "baroness" did or encounter the bad luck of Friedrich and Dore. But there was some couples-swapping. When the choice of personnel is limited, that happens.
The Gallapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, 120 mins., a Zeitgeist Films release, debuted at Telluride Sept. 2013. It opened in NYC 4 April 2014; comes Friday 11 April 2014 to San Francisco and Berkeley.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/galapagos.jpg
THE MÉNAGE À TROIS: "BARONESS" AND HER TWO MEN
Getting away from it all
Hell is other people, a French wag once said. And add to that, in contemporary pshycho-babble: Wherever you go, there you are. These are the lessons presented in Tha Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden. The new documentary tells a twisted tale starting back in 1929, well researched and judiciously edited to make its complexities and chronology as clear as possible under the circumstances, and using writings, read by actors, of the early settlers of what then was an uninhabited island. The topic is how a group of westerners who chose to settle in an unspoiled part of the world messed things up for themselves and each other. You may find it depressing, or fun, but the central crime-mystery story hardly boring. The only trouble is that Geller and Goldfine have so much information, and so many informants, and can't bear to leave anything or anybody out.
Not fleeing from the Great Depression, unmentioned here, an odd German couple, the doctor Freidrich Ritter and his lover Dore Strauch came to the hitherto uninhabited Galápagos island of Floriana in 1929 to start a new life. Both were married, to other people, and abandoned their shocked spouses and offspring and came to find what they thought would be a peaceful paradise. It wasn’t, of course, not for a minute. Ritter was sorely displeased with Dore’s sentimentality and weakness (she had M.S.) and was verbally abusive to her. He in turn found that the intense struggle to survive in the isolated place left him no time for his passionate hobby, an indulgence in philosophical speculations.
Worse still, two years later, to the grouchy doctor’s great annoyance, another couple came to live on the island, attracted by publicity about Dore and Freidrich. They were Heinz Wittmer, his pregnant wife Margaret, and their teenage son Harry. Not long after came an oddball “baroness” (probably not), Eloise von Wagner, accompanied by two young lovers, one of whom, Rudolf Lorenz, was physically abused by the other two. The baroness, evidently Austrian, had run a shop in Paris with Lorenz, with the other chap, Robert Philippson, possibly a clerk there. Von Wagner planned to start a hotel that would cater to wealthy yachtsmen.
Later, after much more publicity, mostly inaccurate, and involvement of this trio and the others on the island with a well-known philanthropist, scientist, and ship captain, Allan Hancock, whose gifts caused great jealousy and conflict, Lorenz came to the Wittmers and told them the “baroness” and her other boyfriend had hopped a boat to Tahiti, hoping to have more luck starting a hotel there. The Wittmers discovered the “baronness’s” house had all its possessions intact, including her talismanic copy of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, which she had told them she never went anywhere without. The couple was never found, and Lorenz was suspected to have murdered them. He immediately sought to leave the island, and he and his Scandinavian rescuer met a sad end.
It gets a lot more complicated than this -- in fact too complicated -- though this is the juciest story and one about which much information and speculation are provided in the film from multiple sources. These include members of the Angermeyer and De Roy families, who settled on the bigger, inhabited Galápagos island of Santa Cruz, the Angermeyers from Germany in 1935 to get away from Hitler, and the De Roys in 1955 from Belgium. And there is the American Divine family, who also settled on Santa Cruz, and the Cruz family, who settled on the former land of Freidrich and Dore after Freidrich met a sad end following a draught and Dore returned to Europe. All these people have a lot to say about life in the Galápagos and comment on the Floriana affair.
Though newspaper readers of the 1930’s would know otherwise, average citizens may think of the Galápagos Ialands, far off the coast of Ecuador, as isolated nature preserve notable mostly for giant tortoises and iguanas and other rare species.
Clearly this is not the case, and Geller and Goldfine’s film deals with fascinating material about Europeans and Americans settling on remote islands. This means to be a committed work of social anthropology. But the criticism is that however well researched this is, the amount of information would be better presented in a book, with some of the trivial commentary by secondary descendants and locals consigned to the back pages. Indeed various talking heads here have produced books on the islands, some in prose and some in images.
There are also a number of Spanish-speakers, including several local settlers who have written "human histories" of the islands. They strike a mellower note and one wonders: why did so many Germans come here?
As part of the storytelling, the deceased characters’ words are voiced by actors, Cate Blanchett (as Dore), Diane Kruger (as Margot Wittmer), Connie Nielsen (as the "baroness"), as swell as Thomas Kretschmann, Sebastian Kocvh, Josh Radner, and Gustaf Skarsgard (Alexander’s brother). Ms. Blanchett’s name may attract viewers and may have attracted production funding. But frankly, it’s the story that counts, not these voices.
Daniel Geller and Danya Goldfine hae done good work as documentarians. It includes films about Isadora Duncan, the Ballet Russes, Tim Rollins and K.O.S, and most recently, Something Ventured, about venture capital’s astonishing role in giving birth the tho most profitable American businesses of recent times, the ones that reside mainly in California’s Silicon Valley. This time they have provided an odd footnote to twentieth-century history. File under Failed Utopias. But note, most of the people and their descendants didn’t cause the ruckus the "baroness" did or encounter the bad luck of Friedrich and Dore. But there was some couples-swapping. When the choice of personnel is limited, that happens.
The Gallapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, 120 mins., a Zeitgeist Films release, debuted at Telluride Sept. 2013. It opened in NYC 4 April 2014; comes Friday 11 April 2014 to San Francisco and Berkeley.