Discover the Salton Sea

A good documentary introduces the viewer to a subject he or she knew little about or expands upon a commonly-known subject and adds more valuable information. The former is true about the 2004 documentary, “Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea,” directed by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer.

Around 1901, a series of man-made accidents created what is known as the Salton Sea, a large body of water in the desert in California. It is about 120 miles northeast of San Diego and just a little bit south of Palm Springs. I wish I had known about this place when I was taking trips to San Diego a few years ago. I know it sounds simplistic to say that a series of accidents created a giant body of water in the middle of the desert. The opening of the film does a fantastic job of explaining how the Salton Sea was created. Film director, John Waters (“Pink Flamingos,” “Cry Baby,” “Serial Mom”), provides the narration for the film.

There is not a great deal of narration in the film because a bulk of the information about the topic of the film is provided through interviews with residents of the towns around the sea. The Salton Sea was quite a popular tourist destination in the 1950’s and 1960’s, however, natural disasters crippled the area and laid waste to any and all remaining future tourism. The residents of the area consider the Salton Sea area to be a pleasant, peaceful place to live, even though summer temperatures there reach 100-110. I know another place that gets like that in the summer. It would be cliché to refer to the people who still live there as eccentric, however, these people do have their own reasons for continuing to live there. These reasons are given in the documentary. “Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea” is a salient look at how the sea was formed, the prosperity that the area enjoyed for two decades, and the result of a series of natural disasters that eliminated said prosperity. In the mid-90’s Congressman, Sonny Bono, did lead efforts to improve the conditions in that area, however, his early death and the lack of anyone to further lead these efforts stalled and, in time, ended these plans of reclamation.

Netflix has this film available to rent in the old-fashioned dvd format. I recommended, especially to documentary lovers, this film. The film covers an interesting subject and is structured very well.