Mark Reviews Movies: EATING UP EASTER

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 21, 2020

Rapa Nui—or, as it is more commonly known, Easter Island—has been defined and re-defined by almost everyone, save for those descended from the first people to inhabit the island in, perhaps, the 12th century. Today, as it has been since the late 1800s, tourism defines the island. People from the around the world are drawn to this remote place, filled with a unique culture and a history that looks back at you in the form of moai, the massive statues known around the world. Eating Up Easter, a succinct but surprisingly extensive documentary, examines how tourism has come to shape the island and its people.

The filmmaker is Sergio M. Rapu, who was born and spent his early years on Rapa Nui as the son of a Rapanui man, a successful land developer on the island, and an American woman. Rapu presents the documentary as a letter to his first-born son. Although he lives in Minneapolis, Rapu is concerned what the future might hold for the centuries' old culture from which he is descended.

The problems are many. Tourism, heightened by a fascination with and some odd theories about the moai, has commercialized the island to a certain extent, and with that comes a lot of outside influence. Trash has become a major problem, not only from tourists leaving behind what they bring with them, but also from a nearby vortex in the ocean, which pushes rubbish from the water to the island's coasts.

Of the many people we meet here, none is as engaging as "Mama Piru," who runs the clean-up and recycling programs on the island. She has tough and no-nonsense responses to Rapu's questions about the garbage issue, and recycling, which can't be transported to the mainland of Chile fast enough, only raises logistical problems and results in pennies of profit.

The film isn't one of doom and gloom, though, because the benefits of the tourism industry can be seen in the development of infrastructure and the fact that people on Rapa Nui have the highest average income of anyone in Chile. The benefits bring their own challenges, especially in terms of maintaining the native culture of the island, and Eating Up Easter is deft in the way it explores these paradoxes and how they present even further challenges to finding a balance between vital tradition and the unstoppable momentum of modernity.

Note: Eating Up Easter is available to watch online through Music Box Films' StreamLocal. You can choose to support a local independent theater (e.g., the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago) with your rental purchase. Half of proceeds from the rental will go to the theater. For more information and to access the film, click here.

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