Over the past couple of days I have been binge watching a new show on Netflix called Dark Tourist which is an 8 episode documentary series which follows New Zealand journalist David Farrier travelling to various parts of the world. Only his journey is searching for the macabre and possibly the tad creepy parts of society or you know parts of the world that we aren't quite as familiar with. As someone who enjoys the likes of An Idiot Abroad and Louis Theroux documentaries this felt like a darker version of the two put together.
First of all, I did enjoy the show a great deal. I have an interest in the dark side of humanity, disasters and other cultures. Sometimes I think the host David is a tad stupid running off into dangerous, radioactive zones or speaking to the likes of Pablo Escobar's right hand man who killed hundreds of people. One minute you are shouting at him "what are you bloody doing? Stop!" and then you are also slightly wishing he would push it further. Sometimes when you are watching it from his perspective you do get a sense of his privilege and how he steps into the different worlds and cultures with this perspective. It could be regarded as problematic but it's a way for us to see different parts of the world that we wouldn't otherwise. I think it's interesting to see these other cultures and be willing to be open to understand their ways of life.
My other issue with the show is how it glosses over some information of the places or groups of people he speaks to but for entertainment it does all the right things. So, I definitely had my favourite episodes over this binging journey and I thought I would share them with you without giving too much away hopefully. Maybe you are interested in watching the show but maybe would like to decide what episodes to watch or you've watched it and share or disagree with some of my thoughts.
Japan
This was my ultimate favourite episode of the series. I enjoyed it so much. In this episode David first travels to Fukushima which is an area in Japan that was badly impacted by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. This caused a nuclear disaster in one of the plants in the area. So David and a group of dark tourists all travel to the radioactive area and at first it seems ok. They all have their own scales to measure the radioactivity. However the further they go to the no go zone the higher their readings became. David also runs off behind the barriers and runs into an abandoned arcade and got the tour group into a lot of trouble which was a bit stupid. He also visits a couple of other well known areas of Japan which is very interesting.
Europe
In this episode he visited an unusual museum in England and spoke on the phone to a very infamous British prisoner, went to a reenactment of the different wars and then Cyprus which is what I found most interesting in this episode. Cyprus is an island which is separated by Greece and Turkey. There is a part of the island which is completely shut off from everyone. I didn't know much about what happened in Cyprus and I'm still not entirely sure I know much more but it definitely was interesting to get a glance at this area. I feel like Europe should have had more than one episode as Europe is a large area with many countries. Perhaps we will get more in another series.
The Stans
The Stans
More radioactive areas in this episode. I guess that's one of my weird interests as I am intrigued by the likes of Chernobyl and the previous episode of Japan. Here David visits the part of the world known as the Stans. He visits The Polygon in Kazakhstan which is a location that the Soviet Union during the Cold War tested their nuclear weapons.They also go take a little dip in a radioactive lake created by a nuclear blast. Not exactly on my bucketlist to be honest. Later on they visit children who have been impacted by the testing and use of nuclear weapons which really puts it into perspective for them and the audience. It is rather horrific how weapons used years ago are still having such an impact on those living there.
Here are some of David's favourite spots that he visited on his Dark Tourist series.
Here are some of David's favourite spots that he visited on his Dark Tourist series.
Have you seen the show? What did you think? Or do you plan on watching it at some point?
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