Director: Ron Howard
 |
| https://www.imdb.com/it/title/tt23149780/ |
This is another philosophical film. This time, it explores the formula for living life. Is it through inquiry, probing, and teasing out the best way to live based on collective thoughts, or by accepting that life is hard and meeting the challenges it throws at us? Or do we simply not care, embracing hedonism, indulging the senses, and enjoying as if there is no tomorrow? We have the choice of living like Plato, Sisyphus, or letting Dionysus be our guiding light.
While watching, I drew a parallel to 1966 Kollywood's 'Saraswathi Sabatham,' where the celestial troublemaker Narada incited the three goddesses of the Hindu pantheon—Parvathi, Lakshmi, and Saraswati—to quarrel among themselves. These three goddesses are said to govern courage, wealth, and knowledge, respectively. A turmoil ensued, with each goddess conferring her virtues onto subjects on Earth and testing them. Ultimately, it was concluded that no one virtue is more important than the others; man needs knowledge, wealth, and courage in equal measure to succeed.
Set between the two World Wars, the story begins with a disillusioned German civil servant, Heinz Wittmer, who arrives at the Galapagos Islands to start anew with his docile wife and their sickly son. Dr Frederick Ritter, another disillusioned soul dissatisfied with worldly pursuits, had previously settled there. He was a well-known figure in Germany through his writings and life experiences. Having abandoned his practice and modernity, he lives with his wife on the island, surviving through planting and hunting, with few necessities. Ritter and his wife are not pleased with the new arrival, fearing that soon the island will mirror the modern world they had left behind. They even suggested the most inhospitable place for them, hoping they would simply give up and return whence they came. Surprisingly, they persevere and survive through sheer hard work.
Meanwhile, the island receives another unwanted guest. Baroness, a suspicious character with two lovers and a questionable past, arrives. She aims to construct a luxury hotel. She brings trouble along with her.
All three teams end up attempting to sabotage each other's efforts to reach their respective goals. Each believed their intentions were noble and justified, confident they would attain their ideal society. Yet, they failed to see the evil lurking within every individual. In the end, ego, greed, hubris, and the desire for power undermine their supposed utopia.
 |
| The Wittmer family of Floreana https://happygringo.com/blog/the-galapagos-affair/ |
The question now to be answered is this: are humans so feeble-minded and weak that they need an objective code on how to live, or can they, through repeated trials and errors, find a common way to share their space here on Earth? Can utopia ever become reality? Will they ever find their Garden of Eden, or will they mess that up, too? Every utopian project carries the recurrent risk of doom due to human frailties, due to the dormant reptilian mind that is waiting to be triggered by our primitive needs.
No one mantra works all the time. One has to take a step back, reassess their progress and make amends. Sometimes these corrections may question the foundation of one's belief. For example, when his crops are invaded by wild boar and he is hungry, Dr Ritter, a self-proclaimed lifelong vegetarian, decides to barbecue a bull's head.
(P.S. This is based on the real-life experiences of the Wittmer family, one of the pioneer white settlers of Floreana Island of Galapagos.)
