The Price of Sugar (2007)

70% of critics liked it
(20 reviews)
72% of users liked it
(416 ratings)

Bill Haney's muckraking documentary The Price of Sugar follows the courageous Father Christopher Hartley, a social activist Spanish priest who makes the inaugural trip to his parish in the Dominican Republic. Upon arrival, he is cautioned by his superiors to avoid traversing the sugar plantations… More Bill Haney's muckraking documentary The Price of Sugar follows the courageous Father Christopher Hartley, a social activist Spanish priest who makes the inaugural trip to his parish in the Dominican Republic. Upon arrival, he is cautioned by his superiors to avoid traversing the sugar plantations that his parishioners call home -- even as a part of regular parish visits. Hartley ignores this admonition, and is then shocked out of his mind to discover the subhuman living conditions and environment endured by the majority of plantation residents -- the environments unsanitary, subhuman and disgusting, the working demands enough to kill any man. Hartley discovers that the residents suffer from their lack of both Dominican and Haitian citizenship -- thus, the government views it as entirely unnecessary to endow these individuals with basic human rights and to treat them with restraint, respect, and dignity. Despite the virulent protests of those in "authority," Hartley bucks governmental and corporate injunctions and begins to fight for improved living conditions for the locals. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 30 min.
Directed By: Bill Haney
Written By: Bill Haney, Peter Rhodes
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Sep 28, 2007 Wide
On DVD: Sep 23, 2008
Studio: Mitropoulos

Critic Reviews

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
Price of Sugar is designed to educate, outrage and finally spur viewers to action. That it does so with vibrant visual style and an engaging narrative makes it that rare consciousness-raising film that's not only good for you, but a joy to watch.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
It's been conceived and executed as an instrument of human rights and a tool of shame. But it's the political controversy that's at the heart of this movie -- the contempt that one poor country feels toward its somewhat poorer neighbor.
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
In this compelling documentary, narrated by Paul Newman, Hartley comes off as a man of intense will, and he needs to be.
Lael Loewenstein, Los Angeles Times
Haney doesn't strive for balance, and he doesn't have to; the images speak for themselves.
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
Illuminating and deeply distressing.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
Like most documentary polemics, it simplifies the issues it confronts and selects facts that bolster its black-and-white, heroes-and-villains view of raw economic power.
Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze
These Haitian sugar slaves are starved, beaten, disappeared, malnourished, and lacking uncontaminated drinking water, even as other far more privileged foreigners frolic in the waters of the DR's tropical tourist paradise nearby.
Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze
These Haitian sugar slaves are starved, beaten, disappeared, malnourished, and lacking uncontaminated drinking water, even as other far more privileged foreigners frolic in the waters of the DR's tropical tourist paradise nearby.
Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat
... even those naturally sympathetic to the film's position may feel like they're taking their medicine.
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly
The tainted relationship between the dessert on our tables and the suffering of those who produce it gets a horrifying workout in Bill Haney's multilayered account of Haitian cane cutters in the Dominican Republic.
Chad Greene, Boxoffice Magazine
[A] no-frills doc, which isn't done any favors by Newman's monotone narration.
Jim Hemphill, Reel.com
Uplifting and enraging in equal measures, Bill Haney's The Price of Sugar is a powerful issue-driven documentary that also happens to have one of the most compelling heroes of any movie this year.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
A portrait of a modern-day saint, a courageous Spanish Catholic priest in the Dominican Republic with a ministry of compassion to poor, enslaved Haitian immigrants. One of the best documentaries of the year.
Maria Garcia, Film Journal International
Few will doubt the priest's claims given the Dominican Republic's appalling human-rights record; one only wishes they had been explored in an objective documentary format.