“Unobtrusive Yet Powerful Simplicity” What Critics are Saying About the Breathtaking New Doc FIRE AT SEA
This Sunday and next Wednesday, AFS presents the new doc, FIRE AT SEA from filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi, who spent a year documenting the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, home of Italian fishermen and their families and, increasingly, of African refugees rescued from rafts and makeshift boats in the Mediterranean.
Kenneth Turan of the LA Times said, “FIRE AT SEA goes about its business in a quiet way, with unobtrusive yet powerful simplicity, using an unconventional structure and cinematic artistry to make its points.”
New York Times’ A.O. Scott, in making the film his the Critics’ Pick, says, “FIRE AT SEA is impressionistic and intensely absorbing. Like one of Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries, it compels you to infer a big picture from a series of extended, intimate scenes.”
Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter says, “Conveying the immensity of the ongoing migrant crisis, which is costing thousands of lives each year as it puts European unity and values sorely to the test, has proven far too great a task for news reporting. Where journalism leaves off, FIRE AT SEA begins.”
Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal says “FIRE AT SEA is a shining example of journalism fueled by outrage and shaped by free-ranging curiosity.”
Bilge Ebiri of the Village Voice writes, “How do you reconcile trauma like this with the easy rhythms of ordinary life? You don’t, Rosi’s film tells us, and to do so would be obscene.”
