As the documentary opera prima of its directors, "Playing with Fire" is a good enough effort to showcase the complexities of both the life and work of its subject: Mexican-born and L. A.-based artist Carlos Almaraz. There are two main ways in which Almaraz's voice comes through in the film, one is a long form video interview where he himself discussed his motivations and the inspiration behind his paintings. The second, a particularly clever decision, is the reading of fragments of his diaries by the well-known musician Zack de la Rocha. Either by performance or coincidence (or both), de la Rocha's voice matches Almaraz's very closely, making for a great continuity between the identity expressed publically by Carlos and the more inner thoughts stemming from his writing.
These "autobiographic" aspects are the strongest aspect of the documentary, which unfortunately falters more in other areas. The soundtrack is at times distracting, seeing how often it is used to create obvious montages showcasing Almaraz's works, at times taking too much attention from them. Generally speaking, the interviews are well-conducted and edited, although the rare cases where they feel too clearly placed for emotional impact can verge on manipulative.
All in all, "Playing with Fire"'s strongest success is in how it manages to introduce an artist whose life and works might not have been a well-known previously, even if its filmic qualities are a tad shortcoming. On the positive of portraying Almaraz's paintings, the documentary does make a good job of representing the thickness of the brushtrokes and paint, even with the obvious limitation of working on a 2-D medium. The film also manages to contextualize Almaraz intelligently not only within the artistic timeframe he lived in, but also his identity both within the Chicano movement and culture, and in LGBTQ+ culture during the peak of the AIDS pandemic.
