A Blooming Business by Ton van Zantvoort (review)

Through the depiction of four vulnerable lives, Ton van Zantvoort uncovers the hidden routine of Kenya’s main export sector: the cut flower industry. Jane, a mother of three children, is an employee in one of the flower farms around Lake Naivasha, working, as she says, “like these people in jail”; Agnes had to abandon this job because the pesticides were gnawing at her skin, and she now watches the days pass in one of the shantytowns surrounding the farms. Kennedy leaves his house in the early morning hoping to catch some of the few remaining fish in the lake to feed his family and eventually sell some; Oscar bows to the harsh necessities of his job: selling (poisoned) water to the community. Representing 1.6 percent of the national GDP, flower exports generate approximately U.S.$1 billion annually, mainly from the European Union. As the opening images of the movie show anonymous workers handling mechanically and with bare hands millions of roses ready to be exported, and a woman’s voice tells us what they mean to her, we know that we are about to discover the roses’ long path through naked hands and hard work.

A Blooming Business is a powerful and unique documentary because of the suggestive way it addresses a highly sensitive and multifaceted subject: workers’ exploitation in the flower farms and environmental pollution around Lake Naivasha. Ton van Zanvoort chose a minimalist fabric. Each of the main characters typifies one key aspect of the issue, but none can escape the nets of the flower farms’ power. Jane admits being sexually exploited by her managers, yet she needs a salary to feed her children. Agnes chose to preserve her health at the cost of her job in the farms, paying the price of extreme poverty, cut off from the rest of the world, with no financial means to travel back to her family. Kennedy, the fisherman, lives off poisoned fish while algae, intruders in a fragile ecosystem, significantly reduce the fishing area. Oscar came to Naivasha because of the widespread belief that there was plenty of work in the farms. He was soon fired, one of the many victims of the farms’ arbitrariness. The employers do not suffer any juridical constraints, and the fired workers are easily replaced by others amid the endless queues of seasonal laborers in dire need. The fired workers are subsequently banned from any job in the area and refused any written documentation that might support their case. The farms are shown as an all-encompassing repressive presence, taking advantage of an inegalitarian legal system in which the position of the state remains unclear.

The filmmaker was not a welcome presence on the farms and often was turned away by police. The leading figures of the farm industry are de facto unreachable, and the documentary hints at their invisible politics of silencing. With very little textual information and no voiceovers, the scenario is built on the interviewees’ crude testimonies and blunt words along with extended visual montages of the dreadful daily life. The film does not announce any ambition to lead a shocking investigation; it provokes more questions than it answers. Nevertheless, one is tempted to ask: Can no legal proceeding be undertaken? Has the exploitation of these workers ever become a matter of public debate? Or did the filmmaker decide to avoid the issue, perhaps for practical reasons—either lack of access to convincing documentation or else the constraints imposed by just under one hour of footage?

To a certain extent, such questions are silenced by the documentary’s narrative. Because the story is told by and through leading personae, the film avoids Manichean “them” versus “us” moral positions. Western consumers of the flowers, be they enamored couples or mourning families, are not shown—such an easy triggering of pathos is avoided. The film takes an inside view of life around Naivasha and talks about people as individuals, not simply as victims. Losing...