Let's be realistic.

Excellent, a Must See

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

This is a documentary that was not originally photographed or filmed to be a documentary. The news clippings and '30s era home movies captured the lives of idealistic dreamers and isolationists trying to recreate paradise on the rugged coastal fringe of one of the least inhabited of the virtually uninhabited Galapagos Island group. The quirky castaway cast of this real life video diary seemed at once, deeply gratified with their aloneness while paired with a disenchanted mate seeking any form of domesticated animal companionship for a feeling of self-worth and value. Isolated introspective perfection for some, painful loneliness for others. We view in sharp Black & White clips, shabbily dressed family members standing on the front porch of their weathered tropical shack overlooking a rocky outcrop of brush and cactus while gazing off into the distant waters of Post Office Bay hoping to catch a first glimpse of sail threaded riggings signaling the return of a familiar 3-masted schooner with goods and well wishes from distant places and friends left behind. Somehow I found myself thinking about all of the present day larger than life personalities you find on the Alaskan survival escapist shows and their gold lusting neighbors. Hardy individuals living on the edge of society to pursue their survivalist dreams and pull riches from the grounds they farm or pan. This is a documentary about socially awkward characters whose lives take a disruptive turn when the Baroness, soon to be slutty Piratess, arrives on the craggy island paradise with her salt and pepper boy toys.Unattractive and delusionally self-assured the flagrantly promiscuous Baroness, of dubious royal heritage, becomes the flamboyant center point of islander society. Territorial infringement, water rights disputes and expected jealousies create a constant undercurrent of distrust and friction. In the midst of growing tensions we're suddenly treated to a revealing view of the Baroness's talents amply on display in intriguing scenes from the locally acted and produced movie, "The Piratess". An aaarg-rated must see!After laying down sufficient backstory things start happening, dreadful things. People go missing, more people go missing, dead people are found and others remain mysteriously nowhere to ever be found. I really enjoyed this stitched together artsy documentary and plan to let it sink in for awhile before watching it again.

This was a delightful combination of a true life murder story and a portrait of a place vitally important in the history of science. A German couple flees human society and the hints of another approaching world war in the thirties. He is a World War I Veteran and a retired doctor. She is an M.S. sufferer who idolizes the former doctor and aspiring Nietzchean philosopher. Both have left their respective spouses to come and live a Robinson Crusoe existence on one of the smaller of the Galápagos Islands. They are soon joined by another family and a woman travelling with two lovers who wants to build a hotel on the island. By the end of the period covered by the documentary the doctor and the hotel developer and both of her lovers are dead. Since the survivors wrote their memoirs and there was ample film footage of the Dramatis Personae, there is almost too much information. Yet at the end of the movie, we don't really know who killed who. We hear the words of each person, ably read by Cate Blanchett and other clear voiced German-accented people. We learn what became of the survivors and their children--who stayed and who went off on their own adventures. And during all this time, we see the animals of the Galapagos climbing over the rocks, gently eating from people's hands, less savage than the humans.

An almost stranger-than-fiction tale of paradise found and paradise lost is recounted in the documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, a true-crime mystery that unfolded in the remote islands off the South American coast during the 1930s that remains unsolved to this day.Tiring of conventional life in Germany, a doctor and his sickly mistress retreat from civilization and head to the furthest reaches of the earth -- the unsettled islands of the nature-filled Galapagos Islands. A family of three soon joins them on the island and tensions begin to build as each have contrasting opinions of what the isle should be like. Things change even more when a beguiling baroness and her two lovers arrive on the island hoping to scout out a location for a fancy hotel.Things happen. Bad things.Told through narration by the reading of the actual people's journals and diary entries of their time on the island, the visuals of the film are as equally fascinating as a surprising amount of actual video footage was recorded of the various adventurers. It is as if it was all meant to happen ... so we'd be intrigued anew 80 years later! This little story has remarkably remained secret over the decades ... I'm surprised Hollywood has not tried to adapt this into a jaw-dropping suspense thriller as nobody on the island knew what to think of any of the others once mysterious things started to happen. What did happen? I watched the documentary and am still unsure. It is a perfect mystery ... or it is a perfect hoax.The film is intriguing and made me think of Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None'. I wish there was more to know ... but there isn't. It is an eternal mystery ..."A closed mouth admits no flies."

No spoiler here, the mystery remains intact, even though there are ideas presented about the philosopher and his mistress, the Wittmer family who stayed, and the Baroness and her lovers who didn't stay. You can judge for yourself what you think really happened.I recommend this film, which would not have been possible without the wonderful old films of Alan Hancock documenting the folks of Floureana. His expeditions not only gave us the film clips but also brought some of the comforts to the people on Floureana. You will see if those were good or not. The filmmakers did a fine job of putting together the film clips, the interviews and photos of the islands and telling a great story.If you love Galápagos, if you have been there or are planning to go you should watch this lovely little history of some of the people who went and lived there on Floureana.