A Blooming Business

A Blooming Business is a thought-provoking documentary that was released back in 2009. Known for its compelling narrative and powerful visuals, this film seeks to tell a compelling and profound story about a seemingly ordinary industry when looked at from the eyes of the Western world—the flower industry.

The film, directed and produced by Dutch documentary filmmaker Ton Van Zantvoort and Olivia Sophie Van Leeuwen, aims to expose the truths hidden behind the beauty of flowers as it delves deep into the lives of those who work in African flower farms, specifically in Kenya's Lake Naivasha. It provides a stark contrast between the technicolor grandeur of blossoming flora and the reality of those who painstakingly cultivate them.

From the outset, A Blooming Business constructs an in-depth viewpoint of the Kenyan flower industry exemplifying global capitalism's at its rawest and uncensored form. These flowers that beautify homes, symbolize love, or even express remorse on the other side of the globe are harvested by Kenyan farm workers who wake before sunrise, working long hours for low wages and risking their health.

Central to the narrative of the A Blooming Business is its focus on three main characters—Oscar, a young Kenyan who hopes to find a stable job in the flower farms, Jane, a single mother working in a factory, and Hosea, a farm union representative advocating for workers' rights. Through their experiences and perspectives, the audience gains a better understanding of the convoluted dynamics that pervade the booming floriculture industry.

The raw reality presented in A Blooming Business is further highlighted by van Zantvoort's unique filmmaking approach. Using natural light and long shots to bring out the rawness of every moment, he ensures that audiences are provided with an authentic visual experience. Moreover, he uses a minimalistic narrative style that allows the stories of the individulas to unfold organically without unnecessary intervention or manipulation.

A Blooming Business, however, is not merely content in just portraying the dismal circumstances that its main characters find themselves in. Instead, at its heart, it seeks to expose the undervalued labor behind every exported flower, connect it with the globalized economics of production, distribution, and consumption, and, ultimately, challenge the indifferent gaze of its consumers. It forces us to reflect on the costs of our pleasures and the lengths the world goes through to accommodate them.

The film also delves into the area of environmental issues. Lake Naivasha, once a thriving ecosystem, faces environmental degradation from the extensive and intensive methods of flower production. Deforestation, water pollution, and pesticide misuse have lured this area into a worsening ecological crisis. As much as it's a social commentary, A Blooming Business also speaks volumes about environmental advocacy, beckoning its viewers to consider their impacts on nature.

The documentary film, A Blooming Business, serves as a ruthless mirror to a global society that often chooses convenience and consumer demands over ethical considerations. The movie effectively mixes its well-selected characters’ intimate stories with hard facts and figures, offering a multi-dimensional perspective on a global problem. Van Zantvoort brilliantly captures the reality behind every flower that is shipped internationally, making the audience think twice before taking that next whiff from a beautiful bouquet. Given its capacity to touch base with human stories while still delivering a resonating critique of capitalist societies, it serves as a must-watch for any documentary enthusiast, advocates of human and environmental rights, or simply anyone interested in a real-life drama set within the vast flower fields of Africa.