O Pesadelo de Darwin

Darwin's Nightmare by Hubert Sauper
Film still [2004].

Um retrato cru de como o capitalismo global pode explorar em larga escala os recursos de uma àrea mantendo as suas populações na mais desoladora pobreza - sem perpectivas e sem opções, até ao ponto da sua quase aniquiliação.

Apesar do ocasional desvio da sua linha condutora a história é poderosa pela sua veracidade e tem impacto no espectador . As cenas dramáticas da realidade local sucedem-se a um ritmo lento mas imparável, com imagens simultâneamente belas e chocantes. Nas palavras do realizador:

It was easy to find striking images, because I was filming a striking reality. [...]

The old question, which social and political structure is the best for the world seems to have been answered. Capitalism has won. The ultimate forms for future societies are "consumer democracies", which are seen as "civilized" and "good". In a Darwinian sense the "good system" won. It won by either convincing its enemies or eliminating them.

In DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE I tried to transform the bizarre success story of a fish and the ephemeral boom around this "fittest" animal into an ironic, frightening allegory for what is called the New World Order. I could make the same kind of movie in Sierra Leone, only the fish would be diamonds, in Honduras, bananas, and in Libya, Nigeria or Angola, crude oil. Most of us I guess, know about the destructive mechanisms of our time, but we cannot fully picture them. We are unable to "get it", unable to actually believe what we know.

It is, for example, incredible that wherever prime raw material is discovered, the locals die in misery, their sons become soldiers, and their daughters are turned into servants and whores. Hearing and seeing the same stories over and over makes me feel sick. After hundreds of years of slavery and colonisation of Africa, globalisation of african markets is the third and deadliest humiliation for the people of this continent. The arrogance of rich countries towards the third world (that's three quarters of humanity) is creating immeasurable future dangers for all peoples.

[Director's Statement]