Fire at Sea

Who needs voiceovers when a director's camera has this much to say?

A fascinating study in contrasts, "Fire at Sea' shows how the normal and painfully abnormal exist side by side - the horrific and the serene, the tragic and the mundane, global crisis and daily humdrum.

Though conceived as a humanitarian statement, the movie wouldn't be as memorable or challenging without its quotidian aspect.

We feel the bewilderment of the parochial yet decent residents, the helplessness of the well-intentioned yet overwhelmed rescuers, and the anguish and disorientation of the refugees.

What makes the movie worth seeing, is the sequence with the Africans chanting in the detention center about making it from Africa, through the scorching Sudanese desert and Libya, to Lampedusa.

Fire at Sea is a shining example of journalism fueled by outrage and shaped by free-ranging curiosity.

A documentary structured as a warm and avant-garde album of glittering images to slow political-poetic fire. [Full review in Spanish]

It's a stirring testament to humanity when the patient voice of the marine patrol addresses the panicked refugees on their boat's radio.

The end result is transporting, but also moving; it's a wake-up call, asking us to think about how much attention we really pay to what's around us, and - perhaps more importantly - what to do about it?

A current, unmissable and noisy film, not because of what you will hear, but because of its outrageous repercussions, that maybe someday they will reach the right ears. [Full review in Spanish]

A reflexive and hard critic that becomes a necessary instrument to show the prevailing level of dehumanization in society. [Full review in Spanish]

Demolishing and poetic, hard and intelligent. Rosi's work moves away from sentimentalism and obvious narrative resources to build a free and unconventional documentary. [Full review in Spanish]