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Showing posts from May, 2019

STYX. Dir. Wolfgang Fischer. 2018

Watching Styx is an uncomfortable experience throughout, and a film that raises many questions. The film outline has told us exactly what to expect so there’s no surprise when Rike spots the stricken vessel overloaded with refugees, after she has been happily sailing, reading, enjoying her solitude, and anticipating reaching the scientifically created paradise. Rike (Susanne Wolff) is an emergency doctor working in Gibraltar who has set sail on a solo voyage to Ascension Island, part of the British Overseas Territory. Previously barren land, the British introduced trees and non-indigenous planting; now there is lush bamboo and the Green Mountain (cloud) Forest, and she is intrigued by the idea of this fully functioning artificial ecosystem created by Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker (explorer and botanist) and the Royal Navy from around 1843. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution describes the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest yet, in creating the self-sustaining and