Swedish director Fredrik Gertten drives Dole Bananas!Yes, we have no bananas.
By Ed Rampell
The most controversial Swedish cinematic brouhaha in America since the X-rated I Am Curious (Yellow) was seized by U.S. Customs is now taking place in Los Angeles. as the Los Angeles Film Festival goes bananas. While sex was at issue in Vilgot Sjoman’s 1969 film, what’s at stake in Swedish director Fredrik Gertten’s film Bananas! is sterility.
The doc is a scathing critique of Dole Food’s spraying of poisonous pesticide on that yellow fruit, exposing the workers who cultivate and harvest it. Bananas! indicates that the multi-national corporation knowingly and recklessly exposed Nicaraguan plantation workers to DBCP after Dow Chemical withdrew it from the market in the late 1970s and the pesticide was banned in America, causing mass infertility amongst banana campesinos.
The Central Americans won an unprecedented court victory against Dole in an L.A. court in 2008. However, after Gertten completed his documentary, Judge Victoria Cheney dismissed the cases in April 2009, charging fraud. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Juan Dominguez, was ordered on June 15 to appear before L.A. Superior Court for a hearing on sanctions for alleged contempt of court. The $8 billion Dole corporation is also threatening both the LAFF and Gertten with what appear to be “slap suits” designed to stifle freedom of speech. (For more information see: http://www.bananasthemovie.com/.)
In a case of “yes, we have no bananas,” Dole Food pressured the L.A. Film Festival to remove Bananas! from the Best Documentary competition and for a disclaimer to be handed out to audiences and read by an LAFF honcho before the screening of the doc, due to “the threat of litigation.” Confessing that “we are not eager to be sued” LAFF relented in the aforementioned ways, but the Festival nevertheless went ahead and showed the film twice. Gertten passionately introduced his out of contention doc Tuesday night and after its screening the Swedish helmer participated in a panel with other documentarians, discussing the ethics of nonfiction cinema and the merits – and demerits – of Gertten’s film.
In this free speech donnybrook what is being lost sight of is Gertten’s film itself, which is an extremely well crafted, powerful chronicle of an important issue. If one looks closely, the viewer can see Dole’s side of the story also being told, in that witnesses on the stand appear to be dissembling and attorney Dominguez, whose personal injury ads adorn L.A. buses, can be viewed as an ambulance chasing, Ferrari driving, anti-Castro Cuban whose family fled the revolution. Gertten also protests that the movie’s message regarding what pesticides may be doing to today’s food supply and to the workers who plant and harvest them is being neglected during the current First Amendment dust up.
In any case, it is to the Festival’s credit that -- despite being under duress in this day and age of disappearing filmfest sponsors -- it went ahead and boldly screened Gertten’s doc – even if in a compromised state. And this film is doing what movies should be doing: after the Tuesday screening and panel (which ran to midnight) viewers were debating the picture’s pros and cons outside the theatre, stirring discussion about important social issues.
The Central Americans won an unprecedented court victory against Dole in an L.A. court in 2008. However, after Gertten completed his documentary, Judge Victoria Cheney dismissed the cases in April 2009, charging fraud. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Juan Dominguez, was ordered on June 15 to appear before L.A. Superior Court for a hearing on sanctions for alleged contempt of court. The $8 billion Dole corporation is also threatening both the LAFF and Gertten with what appear to be “slap suits” designed to stifle freedom of speech. (For more information see: http://www.bananasthemovie.com/.)
In a case of “yes, we have no bananas,” Dole Food pressured the L.A. Film Festival to remove Bananas! from the Best Documentary competition and for a disclaimer to be handed out to audiences and read by an LAFF honcho before the screening of the doc, due to “the threat of litigation.” Confessing that “we are not eager to be sued” LAFF relented in the aforementioned ways, but the Festival nevertheless went ahead and showed the film twice. Gertten passionately introduced his out of contention doc Tuesday night and after its screening the Swedish helmer participated in a panel with other documentarians, discussing the ethics of nonfiction cinema and the merits – and demerits – of Gertten’s film.
In this free speech donnybrook what is being lost sight of is Gertten’s film itself, which is an extremely well crafted, powerful chronicle of an important issue. If one looks closely, the viewer can see Dole’s side of the story also being told, in that witnesses on the stand appear to be dissembling and attorney Dominguez, whose personal injury ads adorn L.A. buses, can be viewed as an ambulance chasing, Ferrari driving, anti-Castro Cuban whose family fled the revolution. Gertten also protests that the movie’s message regarding what pesticides may be doing to today’s food supply and to the workers who plant and harvest them is being neglected during the current First Amendment dust up.
In any case, it is to the Festival’s credit that -- despite being under duress in this day and age of disappearing filmfest sponsors -- it went ahead and boldly screened Gertten’s doc – even if in a compromised state. And this film is doing what movies should be doing: after the Tuesday screening and panel (which ran to midnight) viewers were debating the picture’s pros and cons outside the theatre, stirring discussion about important social issues.
Bananas! Is food for thought, and LAFF’s must-see film – even if it is out of competition.
To read my recent review of another great doc that Gertten co-produced, Burma VJ, see: http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2009/05/film-review-burma-vj.html.
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To read my recent review of another great doc that Gertten co-produced, Burma VJ, see: http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2009/05/film-review-burma-vj.html.
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