One-Liners: The Dark Side

THE ARBOR (2010) (B+) -  This is an ambitious documentary from Clio Barnard (who directed the more recent feature drama "The Selfish Giant") about the troubled playwright Andrea Dunbar. It is, in some ways, a simple story of a family.

Barnard, however, makes the unusual choice of having actors lip-sync to the recorded voices of real people, including Dunbar's daughters. Surprisingly, the gimmick isn't distracting. Meantime, actress Natalie Gaving plays "the Girl," who acts out scenes from Dunbar's plays on the grounds of the English estate where Dunbar lived, in Bradford.

Those scenes are rough, full of anger and alcohol and local slang. Dunbar's daughters struggle to survive, battling their own demons. Manjinder Virk is at times riveting as Dunbar's mixed-race daughter Lorraine. (Dunbar had three kids by three different men.)

Barnard also tosses in clips of Dunbar from a BBC documentary. The mix of voices produces an ethereal quality, giving the dialogue a disembodied feel, sort of like Terence Davies' "Distant Voices, Still Lives." It is a liberating experience.

THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR: WHEN SATAN CAME TO EDEN (B-minus) - A fascinating but surprisingly tedious chronicle of the German eccentrics who sought out paradise on the island of Floreana in the Galapagos in the 1930s.

War was on the horizon back in Europe in 1934, and these settlers seemed to create a microcosm of that harrowing milieu in their own rural society. When a baroness arrives with two apparent lovers in tow, the drama explodes. The scenes of the baroness reveals a vivacious, modern-looking woman. Actual footage from a short film shot at the time, with the residents cavorting in costume, adds a bizarre twist.

The flaw here is the greed of the filmmakers, Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, who try to cram in too many characters and talking heads into a bloated two hours. We see and hear from descendants of the settlers, but it can be difficult to keep track of them all.

Meantime, footage and photographs get repeated on loops ad nauseam. Celebrities lend their voices, including, oddly, the non-Germans Cate Blanchett and Connie Nielsen. In the second half, we're treated to a murder mystery that led to the downfall of the settlement.

What happened 80 years ago seems fascinating. This is an unsuccessful attempt to convey that story.