The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden

It's like an Agatha Christie plot. In 1929, Nietzsche-loving German doctor Friedrich Ritter established an idyll on the uninhabited Galápagos island of Floreana with MS-stricken mistress Dore Strauch. Their exploits attracted Heinz and Margret Wittmer and their growing family and Austrian baroness Eloise von Wagner and her lovers Robert Philippson and Rudolph Lorenz, who announced their intention to open a hotel for millionaires. As the baroness seduced American industrialist-cum-explorer George Allan Hancock into starring in her pirate movie and visions of paradise were compromised, tensions naturally rose. Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine seem more interested in the group dynamics than in solving the mystery of Eloise and Philippson's sudden disappearance in March 1934. And they devote a surfeit of time to other Eden seekers on neighbouring islands, who managed to abandon civilisation without resorting to lust, envy and murder. The voiceovers of Cate Blanchett (Dore), Diane Kruger (Margret) and Connie Nielsen (Eloise) reinforce the deft use of the rich archive material. But the intrusive digressions prevent this from gripping as it should.