Bill Haney's muckraking documentary The Price of Sugar follows the courageous Father Christopher Hartley, a social activist Spanish priest who makes the inaugural trip to his parish in the Dominican Republic. Upon arrival, he is cautioned by his superiors to avoid traversing the sugar plantations that his parishioners call home -- even as a part of regular parish visits. Hartley ignores this admonition, and is then shocked out of his mind to discover the subhuman living conditions and
environment endured by the majority of plantation residents -- the environments unsanitary, subhuman and disgusting, the working demands enough to kill any man. Hartley discovers that the residents suffer from their lack of both Dominican and Haitian citizenship -- thus, the government views it as entirely unnecessary to endow these individuals with basic human rights and to treat them with restraint, respect, and dignity. Despite the virulent protests of those in "authority," Hartley bucks governmental and corporate injunctions and begins to fight for improved living conditions for the locals. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Price of Sugar is designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.
It's been conceived and executed as an instrument of human rights and a tool of shame. But it's the political controversy that's at the heart of this movie -- the contempt that one poor country feels toward its somewhat poorer neighbor.
Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power.
These Haitian sugar slaves are starved, beaten, disappeared, malnourished, and lacking uncontaminated drinking water, even as other far more privileged foreigners frolic in the waters of the DR's tropical tourist paradise nearby.
These Haitian sugar slaves are starved, beaten, disappeared, malnourished, and lacking uncontaminated drinking water, even as other far more privileged foreigners frolic in the waters of the DR's tropical tourist paradise nearby.
The tainted relationship between the dessert on our tables and the suffering of those who produce it gets a horrifying workout in Bill Haney's multilayered account of Haitian cane cutters in the Dominican Republic.
Uplifting and enraging in equal measures, Bill Haney's The Price of Sugar is a powerful issue-driven documentary that also happens to have one of the most compelling heroes of any movie this year.
A portrait of a modern-day saint, a courageous Spanish Catholic priest in the Dominican Republic with a ministry of compassion to poor, enslaved Haitian immigrants. One of the best documentaries of the year.
Few will doubt the priest's claims given the Dominican Republic's appalling human-rights record; one only wishes they had been explored in an objective documentary format.
I found this movie very difficult to watch. I found the priest very inspiring. His example of solidarity in suffering was incredible.
Switching to Fair Trade Sugar was easy. Living in solidarity with those who are suffering is much more difficult.
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