M had really been looking forward to this film fest selection. It had received glowing reviews and in-depth profiles in many places, including Morning Edition. It was nominated for an Oscar. Unforunately, we came away from the film feeling frustrated and disappointed.

Some of our frustration stemmed from technical difficulties. First a bulb blew in the theater's projector, causing them to delay even opening the house by a half hour. It was a 9:00 show, so this was not welcome news. After we were finally seated in the small, crowded seated of the Fredric March Play Circle, it was announced that due to the porjector problems, we would be watching the documentary on DVD. Ok, whatever. Lots of Film Fest selections are digital, so we didn't care.

The basis of the film is this: about 70 years ago, Europeans introduced the Nile Perch to the waters of Lake Victoria in Africa. The Nile Perch is highly prized in Europe as a food item, and is a huge export. Unfortunately, the fish is also a major predator and has wiped ot pretty much every other species in the Lake. The Africans who fish for the perch do dangerous work for very little pay. Others work in the factories cleaning and preparing the fish to ship. Most of those who work in the fishing industry can't afford to eat the fish themselves. Russian planes fly in and out everyday to collect the fish for export, and over the course of the film it is revealed that what the planes bring into Africa are weapons which fuel many of Africa's civil wars.

During the film, we see stark poverty, rampant AIDS, prostution, orphaned street children, dying widows, violence, and hunger. Children pummel each other to fight over handfuls of rice. Men, women, and children sort through piles of maggoty, rotting fish heads to seek a bit of food. Prostitutes mourn the murder of one of their friends by a client. We knew ahead of time that it was not going to be funny or feel-good--this would be a long way from Night of the Living Dorks. However, the unrelenting depression of the film was pretty hard to take.

Still, the depressing material alone wouldn't have ruined it for us. What made things difficult was how frequently we had to wonder what the hell was going on. Most people were subtitled, even when speaking broken English, but most of the action was not explained. I kept wondering, "Who is this person? What is he doing? Who are those people? What are they doing? What is going on?" Some have praised the lack of narrative, but we just found it confusing and hard to follow.

The movie seemed to stretch on forever, and occasionally I felt myself nodding off. Simultaneously, the long time of sitting in the not-quite comfy seats was playing havoc with my lower back. The final straw was when the DVD player started to have problems and forze up. They assured us that it would only be a few minutes to sort it out, but M and I looked at each other and decided to leave. We were probably only 20 minutes from the end, but we couldn't take even one more.

Fortunately, it was our only real disappointment of the weekend. One out of eight isn't bad.