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       #Post#: 3637--------------------------------------------------
       The Galapagos Affair (2013 documentary)
   DIR By: agate
       Date: May 5, 2022, 1:51 am
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       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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