Samuele is twelve, son of a fisherman, a fairly normal boy. Bored a bit, what can already do in the afternoon on the small, rocky volcanic island, ballert with imaginary automatic weapons on naval ships off the coast, slurping spaghetti with cuttlefish sauce in Grandma’s kitchen, tinkering slingshots with his friend. Pines are good because they have robust forks, and the rubber must not be too loose. Cut faces in fleshy cactus ears, bombard them stuck small firecrackers in the holes. Verrecke !, call both on birds, they aim also. Guys stop. On the fishing boat of the father Samuele hanging over the railing, he can not row. A seasick fisherman’s son? Here live all of seafaring. Samuele to his stomach toughen says the father, on the jetty in heavy surf
A few meters away, in the sanctuary of Lampedusa. People in need, they come from aboard the rescue ship, shrouded in goldglitzernde , crackling cold protectors. Big eyes, ecce, aliens from Africa. The Mediterranean refugees are fingerprinted, with their white jumpsuits and masks to see the helpers also like aliens from. Ask for the country of origin, keeping the new arrivals a number next to the face, make a quick photo, take before strip searches. The refugees smell strongly diesel, boats, the motor fuel has mixed with salt water. The refugee doctor, Dr. Bartolo, shows a picture of the severe burns that the mixture has the result.
Twice Lampedusa, two worlds. Here the island-life with the fishermen, the sea urchin divers and old Maria, who wants from Nello, their moderating in local radio nephew, folk songs. Since the waiting to be Weiterverschickung asylum seekers. The Italian documentarist Francesco Rosi crosses the images in “wildfire – Fuocoammare” against each other. To make clear what has Samuele and refugee not: home. And identity. The boy learns the viewer know that refugees remain anonymous. Of necessity, because they leave the island after a few days. For an encounter in front of the camera is no time.
If the truth of Lampedusa shortened?
“wildfire” is, after all, what it means in concrete terms that this almost surreal rugged, only 70 km away from the African coast volcanic island confronted with the refugee reality is like no other place in Europe. Month experience the good 6000 residents, what happens when dangerous land routes and legal passages are blocked. 400 000. refugees stranded in here 20 years, 15 000 people died of Lampedusa, it is at the beginning. A number that must be corrected upward now. Only this spring found in the Mediterranean 2,500 people to death.
A film which stirs, no question. At the Berlin won “wildfire” the Golden Bear; According to the “Mirror” Italian Prime Minister, the DVD has spread at an EU summit, all leaders including Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, there is something wrong with this dedicated production, for which the director one year lived in Lampedusa, only one month spent on the rescue ship Cigala Fulgosi and worked with the smallest team – he led the camera. Sometime one wonders whether the two worlds on the small island never actually come into contact. Has Samuele never seen a refugee, he never thinks about them? to Restricts the perception of comers on the radio news that the old Maria (Samueles aunt? One does not learn) the pasta cooking listening? Or is the glaring discrepancy between normality and emergency aesthetics of contrast due? But the naval ships, here they are lifesavers, there target for baller boys playing – which shortens the truth of Lampedusa
Rosi dispensed voiceovers and additional information, except in the credits.. He exercises patience, his reticence in honor. But at the latest when he watches the island doctor during ultrasound test a pregnant African woman and this reported in a few sentences what he has seen in 20 years what it means to have to repeatedly perform an autopsy corpses, at the latest one would like to learn more of this Pietro Bartolo. Compared to the swaggering Samuele he is the more interesting protagonist. Because the worlds are not separated for him
The lazy eye -. A metaphor for Europe
To compensate for the imbalance between the clearly contoured Samuele and the phantom liable refugees, Rosi studied at least physically, the proximity to them. Filmt their faces in close-ups, drawn by pain, hope fatalism. Look, as one for all intones a kind of Gospel, a from the chorus of the other primed escape rap: Nigeria, Sahara, Libya, prison every day blows back the desert, the piss, which they drank, the mountains, the sea , “The sea is not a road”, the man sings, and that life is dangerous. Samueles eye problems are silly about it. One eye is sluggish, says the optician, it must be activated – for a Rosi found Europe metaphor
After the scene, his film is not recovered from the.. When recovering a huge rusty barge the documentarian decides to obvious reluctance to descend with the camera into the hold. 40 bodies, he displays them with due distance. And the survivors: exhausted to death people, twitching bodies later on the rescue ship’s deck, like fish in the net. The silent power of these scenes punishes any documentary aesthetics lies. You remember that the vast majority of victims are from those who appear in these days as Amok- or terrorist offenders in the headlines, miserable victims. And they burn into how the iconography of the eponymous wildfire-song that tells of incendiary weapons on the sea, then at war. A fire that could not be deleted.
subtitles. In eleven cinemas in Berlin. With eng. Subtitles: b-ware! invite cinema, IL cinema
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