Film Preview: The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2014)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

April 4, 2014

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “Darwin meets Hitchcock in this feature-length documentary. THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR is a gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry, set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galapagos Islands. Featuring voice-over performances by Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Kretschmann, Gustaf Skarsgard and Josh Radnor, this film skillfully interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers (a handful of Europeans, Americans and Ecuadoreans who settled idiosyncratically on the Islands between the 1930s and 1960s). As such, it is a parable about the search for paradise — about what happens when a handful of individualists settle on the same small island seeking their own distinct and sometimes clashing notions of Eden.”

Trailer: C+ / C+ / B-

Review: Both designs use a tropical style to represent the setting of the documentary. While the first is more visually interesting, the second does a better job establishing the film’s premise, but that still requires familiarity with the trailer to be of ultimate interest.

(#3) What was pleasing about the prior two designs is almost amplified here, giving us a suggestion of a compelling mystery and series of romantic affairs that would fit well into the “Peyton Place” era.

Trailer: B-

Review: What initially brought my attention to this documentary was Cate Blanchett’s name. The concept of actors replicating scenes isn’t a new one, nor is it fresh to use actors to read aloud letters that form the correspondent backbone of the documentary. However, it’s been a very long time when such a thing was very effectively or very widely used, which makes this seem more like a novelty. The trailer drones a bit after it hits the half-way mark, but generates enough compulsion up to that point to be interesting.

Oscar Prospects:

If The Act of Killing does well, we could see an influx of unusual fare in the Documentary Feature competition. Whether or not this one makes a play or not depends on how critics embrace it.