The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden

Husband-and-wife filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller raise the curtain on an exotic, haunting, unsolved mystery worthy of Agatha Christie that made Depression-era headlines (and was later luridly rehashed in men's-adventure magazines). In the 1930s, a handful of back-to-nature Germans arrived in the remote Galapagos archipelago off Ecuador. Chief among them: vegetarian philosopher-doctor Friedrich Ritter and his multiple sclerosis-stricken mistress, Dore Strauch, whose utopian dream of living (and, in Ritter's case, writing) by the rules of idol Nietzsche in a tropical paradise would crash up against the rigors of subsistence farming, and resentment over new neighbors: the happy, healthy, and thoroughly bourgeois Wittmer family. The real calamity, however, began with the arrival of a shady aristocrat, the “Baroness von Wagner” (along with her two lovers), who schemed to build a luxury island hotel. Soon, half these oddballs would be dead or missing, and the survivors would later pen self-serving memoirs (one entitled Satan Came to Eden) that pointed fingers of guilt at each other. The filmmakers' real coup—besides getting noted actors such as Cate Blanchett and Diane Kruger to read letters, diary entries, and book excerpts—was uncovering vintage 35mm movie footage of the islanders made by a regularly visiting science expedition. Captivated—as most outsiders were—by the Baroness, they actually shot a DIY pirate drama (!) with her in a starring role. Interspersing contemporary interviews with relatives and locals, along with nature footage of iconic giant tortoises, iguanas, and birds, this is a decidedly weird (and absolutely compelling) tale of humans behaving badly. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (C. Cassady)