When Charles Darwin invented the Galápagos Islands a few centuries ago, do you suppose he bargained for murder? Here’s a tale set entirely in the 1930s Galápagos that makes no mention of Mr. Darwin (blasphemy!) and has absolutely nothing to say about flightless cormorants, giant sea turtles or blue-footed boobies. Well, nothing about boobies with respect to the avian species, at least.
In 1929, Doctor Friedrich Ritter decided to abandon German civilization and move to Isla Floreana in the Galápagos. Accompanying this Adam was an Eve named Dore Strauch; the two both embraced the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche, who apparently implored humans to sequester themselves in remote parts of the globe (and abandon their marriages in doing so – Fast Freddy and Dore der Explorer here both left spouses behind). I suppose the location was the weirdest part of the philosophical break. The doctor and frau had (seemingly) no interest in evolution, just getting away from it all.
I gotta interject as somebody who has actually been to I. Floreana – the idea that the Ecuadorian government would open up shop and welcome any random European to settle any of the uninhabited (by humans) Galápagos Islands is insanity. When I got there, it’s all: “TOUCH NOTHING! You can look at the animals, OK? Just don’t look too hard. Ok, you’ve seen enough of that one. Move on.” There are maybe a dozen islands in the chain and only one has humans living on it. It’s a place where you need a permit to breathe. But in the 1930s, it’s all, “oooooooooooohhhh, you want some of this? Here, have a plot of land.”
This leaving Germany to Germans worked for a bit until Heinz and Margret Wittmer showed up. Now, you can just imagine this, can’t you? You take your non-wifely squeeze and decide that your life is just she and nature for the rest of time. And this makes you happy. And, six months later, some other couple says, “we want in” and becomes your neighbor. Not only that, she’s pregnant and assumes that Dr. Ritter will be her 
primary care physician. I’m sorry, but that’s messed up.
It gets worse. Not long after that, a Baroness Eloise von Wagner and her two boy toys show up on the island. She’s straight Ginger from “Gilligan’s Island” and is having open sexual relationships with both men. No kidding. This horse-toothed “Baroness,” who struck me as an adult-movie version of Eleanor Roosevelt, has an idea to turn her part of Floreana into a resort hotel, but mostly, she just likes to taunt the adults of Floreana with her sexuality.
Geez, this review reads like a bad romance novel.
So that’s the scene: small island; three disparate groups, some antipathy, some jealousy, some sex and it’s only a matter of time before something rotten happens. That event was a drought in 1934. Let’s just say that not everybody left the islands, but we don’t exactly know what happened. The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden documents the events of the 1930s that we know about and fills in the gaps with modern day interviews of the descendants of locals who were around at the time. This is the weakest part of the documentary and seems like filler. Do they know what happened? Of course not. Just seven people on a remote island and little evidence to back anything. Like your mysteries unsolved? This is the film for you.
Two kids move out to the stix
To get their own Man Friday kicks
Societal dissolution
To study evolution?
Not quite; their science: Forensics
Not Rated, 120 Minutes
D: Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine
W: Celeste Schaefer Snyder, Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine
Genre: Ghost story
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Amateur sleuths (how many times are you gonna sling together consecutive “eu” words in your lifetime?)
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Counter culturists
