“Wildfire” in cinema – fishing, housework, Kids Games – death – Süddeutsche.de

The Berlinale winner “wildfire” shows how to Lampedusa everyday of the islanders and the dying of boat people meet. A spooky contrast.

movie review from Martina Knoben

Two boys making faces in cactus, so how this country carving at Halloween faces in pumpkins. There are faces thereof. “We make them flat!”, Call the boys, and “Verrecke!” Then one sees with a spin on the “enemies”, the other throws a firecracker.

It is the pastime of two 12-year-old on an island that has not much variety. No comment and no showy framing indicates that the director Gianfranco Rosi the scene will give a special meaning. And yet the idea suggests that it reveals something universal about human nature: its potential for aggression, for example, or that he simply likes carving enemies

The film holds its own against the hysteria of news and. rapid mobile video

everyday observations to give a metaphorical dimension, this feat possible Rosi repeatedly. His documentary “wildfire” has made at this year’s Berlinale sensation and gained acceptance for the Golden Bear in the competition – because it tells of life on the island of Lampedusa, a political focal point where the refugee disaster in the Mediterranean is to read in full force. And at the same time linked to the great tradition of Italian neorealism. . “Wildfire” makes it clear what the documentary is especially in contrast to the news journalism able

In order to counter these images something Rosi moved to Lampedusa and filmed over a year the island everyday: fishing, housework and children’s games. was from the other reality of the island initially little to see – the death of the refugees at sea. In the last 20 years, informs a intertitles, were 400 000. migrants landed on Lampedusa and died about 15 000 refugees in attempting to get to Europe.

It is this spooky contrast, the Rosis film evokes, because it shows the work of the coast guard: Desperate calls from refugees on sinking boats are heard. Exhausted and dehydrated people are heaved from overloaded boats and wrapped in gold shiny rescue films. As science fiction seems to the but just as everyday life and fishing and housework the islanders. Since the boats of migrants are already intercepted at sea, the inhabitants of Lampedusa get barely refugees to see.

The spaces at the bottom are the cheapest, here the air is the worst and there are most deaths

the juxtaposition of the two worlds is the haunting metaphor for the blindness of Europe for the disaster that is happening at the edge of the continent. Such as when the 12-year Rosi Samuele accompanied in his wanderings about the island. The boy shoots like with his slingshot at birds and cacti. He will quickly seasick and has a visual impairment, a “lazy eye”, as the doctor stated – also could be interpreted as a metaphor for looking away from the West. That “wildfire” repeatedly acting artificial, sometimes even as staged, could appear as a weakness. If you trust the director but so far that one understands his finds as a reward for a particular patient look, these images are the greatest strength of the film. Because it can stand up to the hysteria of quick news photos Mobile Videos the documentary cinema, especially in times of terror and gunmen. “Wildfire” not only documents the suffering of refugees – the artful eye of the director, who studied not only the spectacular, is to prompt even closer look

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Rosi has worked with simple equipment and even out the camera. The island he filmed many times in bad weather, constantly hanging clouds like a gray cover over her. In its barrenness, exposedness and monotony Lampedusa reminiscent of a Western-Fort. The frontier runs on the sea. Why the island itself as a “fortress Europe” acts

In previous films, Rosi had engaged in closed worlds which own rhythms and rules to follow. In “El Sicario, Room 164″ is about an hitman “Sacro GRA – Sacro GRA” explored the life of the ring road around Rome. For “wildfire” he was allowed to rotate in the sanctuary for refugees and on one of the naval vessels that patrol off the African coast. He got a glimpse of the logistics of the refugee crisis. Thus not only the rescue operations are meant. We also learn from the three classes that there are on the boats: The seats are all the way down to the cheapest, here the air is the worst, and there most of the dead. Rosi has also filmed the corpses in the belly of a ship and refugees who were so weak in their salvation, that no one could know if they survive.

Some critics him therefore voyeurism has been criticized, especially Rosi this people could not ask for permission before he filmed. But it is also in this case, his eyes, legitimized the Rosis operation. The refugees do not appear as an anonymous mass, the camera searches eye contact. And the director slips even under the gold-colored foil rescue to assume the perspective of migrants during the journey to a reception camp and trap the surreal situation. Since he is then literally with them under a blanket. Again and again the viewer is tempted metaphorically to see simple scenes in this way, also a central sequence of the film, the very poetic formulated the humanist message of the film. As studied the island doctor Doctor Bartolo, who oversees the incoming refugees for years and the only one connecting the worlds on Lampedusa, a refugee. She is expecting twins. The doctor can on the ultrasound but seen little: “What a mess,” he commented friendly clutter. the limbs of children Much are intertwined, that it can not be separated from the other one lives.

Fuocoammare , Italy, France 2016 – director, Screenplay, camera: Gianfranco Rosi. Editing: Jacopo Quadri. Rental: World Cinema, 108 Minutes

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