THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR (2013, documentary)
In 1929 a Dr. Friedrich Ritter, who may or may not have been a botanist, left his spouse in Germany to join a woman who may or may not have been his former patient, Dore Strauch, but who was definitely his lover (and who left her spouse), and traveled to the Galapagos Islands to live, settling on the island of Floreana.
The extent to which they publicized this venture isn’t clear but it did get some media attention, and soon disciples of Dr. Ritter were joining them on the island. The Baroness von Wagner, who may or may not have been a real baroness, seems to have landed there (with two lovers in tow), not as a Ritter disciple, but because she dreamed of building a hotel on the island.
More or less in passing, this documentary reveals that Dore Strauch had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis before they set out. Ritter, a vegetarian and a Nietzschean, apparently believed that she could overcome her disorder by making strenuous efforts, and indeed in every glimpse of her that is shown in the movie, she appears to be able-bodied.
By 1934, however, several of the group had mysteriously disappeared, and Dr. Ritter had died, also under questionable circumstances. Just how much knowledge and skill in living in the wild any of these people had isn’t made clear but we learn that the spring droughts caused their crops to fail and their livestock to die. Also, occasional visitors to the island brought them gifts of various conveniences though these seem to have been few and far between.
This tragic tale is presented mainly in the form of actual photos and movies made at the time, with various actors’ voices reading segments from accounts left by the principal settlers on Floreana. It is a fascinating account though very bizarre, and astonishingly apolitical.
Since this settlement coincided almost exactly with the time of the rise of Nazism in Germany, it would have been helpful to know how these particular Germans felt about the changes taking place in their native land, but there is no indication whatsoever.
At the end there are a few comments about the eventual fate of the various settlers, and we learn that in 1934 Dore Strauch returned to Germany, where she tried without success to publish Ritter’s philosophical writings. Her own book, Satan Came to Eden, appeared in 1935, and she died in 1943 of “complications of multiple sclerosis.”
Without having read her book, I can guess that the quotations from her that are included in the movie were drawn from it, but she may have left other accounts as well.
Intermittently, there are amazing views of the flora and fauna of the Galapagos, well worth seeing, even though the facts of these people’s lives are ambiguous and may never be known.
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Topic: The Galapagos Affair (2013 documentary) (Read 35 times)
August 24, 2016, 09:08:48 am