The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
When this documentary was released in April, it was the best to come out so far this year. It still is and it deserves to be short-listed for an Oscar. It tells a remarkable true story from the early 1930s about people in search of paradise who find themselves in a crazy sort of hell. First, a grim German couple arrive, wanting to live according to Nietzschean principles. Unfortunately, their letters back home are leaked to the press, and their popularity causes another German couple to show up at their doorstep. So now they have neighbors. But it gets worse: A loony Austrian woman arrives, calling herself “the baroness.” She has a gun and two sex slaves and announces plans to start a hotel and rule the island. She is ridiculous and sinister, and from there things get interesting, and odd, and dangerous. Documentarians Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller discovered this irresistible story, and then got even luckier: They found home movies taken on the island, including a demented one-reel short that the baroness wrote, in which she plays a pirate queen who seduces and kills people. As a result, what might have seemed remote becomes suddenly vivid. Everything is supported with pictures and film footage, so that you feel that you really know these characters. We also know what they were thinking, because they wrote constantly. Their words are used as narration, read by a first-rate cast, including Cate Blanchett, Thomas Kretschmann, Connie Nielsen and Diane Kruger. This is very intelligent fun, with a mystery element that will keep you thinking for days after. Among special features of this well-mastered DVD are 14 deleted scenes and an interview with the directors at the Telluride Film Festival.