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"I've always been drawn to the stranger side of life, so I decided to investigate black tourism – a global phenomenon where people avoid the ordinary and prefer to spend their holidays in war zones, disasters and other quirky destinations, "says New Zealand journalist David Farrier sharply at the beginning of the show.
Thus, in eight 40-minute episodes, the Kooky kiwi visits strange and less wonderful places around the world – from the closed city of Baikonur in Kazakhstan (the site of the Russian space program) to a voodoo festival in Benin .
Farrier admitted in a recent interview that the most common insult that he hears of himself is "You are the crap version of Louis Theroux" – and that is a depressively descriptive precise (you could throw "John Oliver's more polished version" in the mix, too). It seems to embody all the stereotypes you've ever read about Kiwis: serious, friendly and just a bit bland, which means the show has a frustrating inert presence at the base.
The host claims to be interested in the mad, the macabre and the morbid, but this is rarely confirmed by his reaction to events. In fact, the craziest, most macabre and morbid things are found in "Dark Tourist", plus Ferrier looks like the proverbial tourist who took a wrong turn and wandered wrongly in the wrong part of the city.
The format sees him visiting three different locations in a country or region in each episode: Just like any holiday itinerary, some turn out to be more engaging than others. Of the four episodes I've seen so far, each contains a brilliant segment, an OK segment, and a filler.
Things start in Latin America and the world's cocaine capital, Medellin (you can easily spot it on Colombia's maps – that's the one marked with white lines). Here, Ferrier explores the so-called "narcotourism" and hometown of drug baron Pablo Escobar, who created a coke empire through blood and bullets before finally being shot down in 1993.
This is perhaps the popularity of another Netflix show, "Narcos", which inspires people to make a tour of the five-star prison that Escobar built for him- same or the neighborhood that he built on an old dump. But there is nothing here that has made me want to rethink my vacation plans.
Ferrier interviews Escobar's best hitman, Popeye, who has apparently beaten over 250 people (including his own girlfriend) and now runs "Escobar Tours" where he praises his former boss.
The hair can now be gray, but Popeye remains a scary man. "It's the only way to escape poverty," he says, gripping his weapon as a mother could hold a newborn baby. There is a fascinating moment when Ferrier asks Popeye if he has ever considered a therapy, and the hitman points his gun and calls him the only counselor he ever needed. Here is a guide who can expect big advice when the hat is over.
A frustrating aspect of the show is that he often abandons the dark tourist trail and leaves to interview people that no tourist can. For me, the show is at its best when it comes to black tourists themselves, so we can find ourselves in the head of an Ontarian who has decided that his first trip to the outside Canada was to be a suicide near Mount Fuji.
There are several segments that deserve to be searched even if you do not watch the entire series. One of them is perhaps the most perverse tourist attraction in history (after the Israeli camp of terrorist tourism in the West Bank): people who pay to do six hours walk to cross the border of an illegal migrant from Mexico to the United States. I would be happy to "build the wall" to prevent anyone from doing such a tour within a hundred miles of me. The boundaries of Ferrier as the host are again underlined when the only message that he communicates at the end of all this is the less than overwhelming observation: "For migrants, this is not the case. is never fun.
Nuclear Warnings
The other striking moment is that of a tour to Japan, where Ferrier is doing nuclear tourism (at the end of the show you will have accumulated a lot of new terminologies for your travel agent local, if such a thing still exists). He embarks on a bus trip to the coastal region of Fukushima, where more than 20,000 people were killed when the region was hit by the impious trinity of an earthquake, a tsunami, and a disaster. 39, a nuclear disaster in 2011.
Ferrier and his pbadenger bus leave in the desert, all armed with personal Geiger counters (a person is also optimistic armed with a bottle of vitamin D, to "offset the effects of radiation") They are expect to find radiation readings of 0.2 while they visit the deserted and haunting ghost towns to which no-one has returned, although the state has given them the go-ahead.
Things take a turn for the more serious when the edgy jovial tour guide advises the group to avoid dust because it is still particularly radioactive and could lead to cancer. Once again, all our casual host can say at this point: "Suddenly, nuclear tourism does not seem to be such a good idea."
The series' imagery is strong – drones are used to produce stunning aerial photos – but it really shines here as we see scene after scene of desolation, or stacks of radioactive topsoil neatly hidden under green Bright covers as the authorities wonder what the heck do with them.
Even in such a desolate place, pockets of unintentional humor appear. For example, the Japanese have renamed the exclusion zone surrounding Fukushima as a "hard to return" zone. And I hope I'm not the only viewer to know about Schadenfreude as these so-called nuclear tourists without fear start to get itchy when the Geiger counter reaches up to 50 times the level supposedly safe.
There are two episodes dedicated to the United States, and if the Jeffrey Dahmer segment is slightly interesting (if you live with someone who would wear a "Cream City Cannibal" T-shirt sporting the face of the serial killer, I strongly suggest life may be in serious danger and you are coming out of the house now), it is hard to believe that the JFK badbadination tourism trail in Dallas will be a surprise to many. A section of New Orleans is also weak, Ferrier trying to find vampires but only managing to find refugees from a Cure concert and a so-called "fangsmith" that will give you Dracula's dentures for the sum of $ 150. .
I plan to watch the remaining episodes at some point (probably on vacation), but "Dark Tourist" is really the televisual equivalent of the vacation photos of friends on Instagram: something better seen in short doses. At 40 minutes, even the best episodes hang out without a vibrant commentator to really engage the viewer, even if, at best, they manage to blur the line between real life and an episode of "Black Mirror".
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