Arts & Events

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden Opens April 11 at the Landmark Theater

By Gar Smith/ The Berkeley Daily Planet
Friday April 11, 2014 - 10:22:00 AM

This is the kind of story that cries out for a movie treatment. Mystery! Time travel! Ghosts!

Long ago, in the 1930s, three eccentric tribes were thrown together on an isolated island in the Galapagos. In a mix of Swiss Family Robinson meets Manson Family, The Galapagos Affair recounts how a clash of egos and eros turned a search for Utopia into a bizarre murder mystery. (Or, as the distributor's press kit put it: a case of "Darwin meets Hitchcock.") 

 

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The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden 

Opens April 11 at the Landmark Theater in Berkeley 

By Gar Smith/ The Berkeley Daily Planet 

 

 

 

This is the kind of story that cries out for a movie treatment. Mystery! Time travel! Ghosts! 

Long ago, in the 1930s, three eccentric tribes were thrown together on an isolated island in the Galapagos. In a mix of Swiss Family Robinson meets Manson Family, The Galapagos Affair recounts how a clash of egos and eros turned a search for Utopia into a bizarre murder mystery. (Or, as the distributor's press kit put it: a case of "Darwin meets Hitchcock.") 

This unlikely film project first drew breath in 1998, when San Francisco filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller were working on a National Science Foundation shoot in the Galapagos Islands. One day they happened across a book of local history called The Enchanted Islands. It contained a 12-page chapter—"Murder in Paradise"—that told the story of Friedrich Ritter, a Berlin physician-cum-philosopher, and his partner Dore Strauch who turned their backs on "civilization" in an attempt to hew out a Nietzschean utopia on the uninhabited island of Floreana. When word of their adventures reached the German press, their solitary idyll came to an end. Soon (much to their dismay) Friedrich and Dore were no longer alone. First they were joined by Heinz and Margret Wittmer and their son. And, finally, the island was invaded by the self-style "Baroness" Eloise Wehrborn von Wagner-Bosquet, a capitalistic femme fatale accompanied by two devoted male lovers. 

By happenstance, after stumbling across the story in print, the filmmakers crossed paths with 95-year-old Margaret Wittmer—the sole surviving witness to the events of 60 years before—when they were forced ashore on the island of Floreana during a sail. 

Wittmer volunteered not a word about the ancient mystery that still haunts the island but, just before the filmmakers departed, she hinted cryptically: "A closed mouth admits no flies." That's when Goldfine and Geller knew they were hooked. 

They wanted to turn the tale into a documentary but, with the exception of Margaret, all the principals were long dead. Since they had no interest in producing a fictionalized account with a Hollywood screenplay and a team of A-list actors, the idea was shelved – for nearly 15 years. Goldfine and Geller went on to make a number of other films, including the acclaimed Ballets Russes

In all likelihood, The Galapagos Affair would never have happened had it not been for a near-miraculous discovery. Archivists at the USC film library in southern California had been storing a trove of documents, photographs, negatives and 16-mm film footage donated by Allan Hancock, a wealthy industrialist and yacht-owner who had visited Floreana in the 1930s. 

Geller and Goldfine barely got to the film canisters in time. When the metal lids were pried open, the room filled with the scent of vinegar—a pungent sign the ancient celluloid was in the process of decomposing. Fortunately, they were able to make stable transfers of most of the reels. No one knew what was on the decaying reels but when the transfers were played out on the screen, the filmmakers were astonished. The decades-old collection of "home movies" featured the Ritters, the Wittmers and the Baroness and her boys—all in starring roles. 

It also turned out that Dr. Ritter, his partner Dore and the Wittmers had all written extensively about their days on Floreana. Dore wrote a book called Satan Came to Eden and Margaret Ritter went on to pen a book of her own—Floreana: A Woman's Pilgrimage to the Galapagos. These revealing first-person accounts (along with intimate notes and harsh criticisms contained in personal diaries) provided the filmmakers with a Rashomon-like slant on the story and its players. (The two books offer contrasting accounts of Ritter's ghastly death. Did he die trying to give his lover one last embrace or did he curse her with his dying breath?) Suddenly Geller and Goldfine had everything they needed to create a very special film. 

Because the ancient black-and-white celluloid footage had no soundtrack, it was necessary to find actors to bring the words of the protagonists to life. Goldfine and Geller were able to recruit some of the film industry's best. Cate Blanchett (in town shooting Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine) fell in love with the project and agreed to voice Dore Strauch. Thomas Kretschmann signed on to voice Dr. Ritter and Connie Nielsen became the voice of the baroness. 

Goldfine and Geller made five more trips to the Galapagos, to conduct interviews— with the children of these charismatic pioneers, with two local historians, and with a brace of colorful Galapagueños. 

The 80-year-old film footage is surprisingly intimate and wide-ranging, with much of it looking like it could have been shot specifically for this documentary. There's even a movie-within-the-movie. The baroness apparently so captivated the yacht-loving Hancock that he made a special return trip to Floreana to film a short movie starring the buxom baroness as a rifle-wielding pirate. 

The baroness may not have been Satan incarnate but she certainly bedeviled many men who crossed her path. There was friction. There was anger. There was an unsolved disappearance that suggested murder. And, in the end, the only clue remains forever mute—a sun-baked body stretched out on a forlorn rock in the middle of the ocean. And, against all odds, there was someone with a camera who found the body, filmed it, and left the footage hidden in a campus film archive to be discovered generations later.