Fuocoammare

Fifteen thousand people have died on their way from North Africa to the Italian island Lampedusa. That's five times as much as the number of casualties in the 9/11 attacks. The scale of this human tragedy is almost impossible to fathom.

And yet, that's exactly what director Gianfranco Rosi has tried to do in this documentary. He must have spent many months with the Italian coast guard, which tracks down the vessels with refugees. And he must have shot an immense quantity of footage, because it's clear he has selected only the best material.

The film doesn't explain or elaborate. It just shows, as a good movie is supposed to do. There is some very shocking footage, but also plenty of small, almost ordinary scenes like a beautiful shot of a helicopter taking off, or a doctor doing a check-up of a newly arrived refugee pregnant with twins.

But there are not only scenes of refugees. There is also daily life on the island, which we see through the eyes of a small boy. The contrast between the calm, uneventful lives of the boy and his family, and the utter despair and misery of the refugees, is what makes this film special. It also offers the viewer some relief from the grim scenes at sea. Some of the scenes featuring the boy are really funny, such as his visit to the doctor because of an imagined illness.

The editing of the film is great. There is a slow build-up, with scenes whose meaning is not immediately clear. But later on, things fall into place. The most shocking footage is shown near the end. Also, there is a very good balance between the rescue scenes at sea and almost poetic scenes of daily life on the island.

I realize that the film was meant to show how the lives of the islanders were impacted by the refugee crisis, but it didn't. The film showed endless footage of a young boy playing, making catapults, pretending to shoot down aircraft? birds? shooting at cactus, getting his eyes tested, and a friend riding his scooter. There was footage of his family life, mama cooking, peeling vegetables, the family eating, mama making a bed. A DJ playing requests, and on, but no scenes of the interaction with the refugees/migrants. We saw the coast guard rescuing dying migrants from overcrowded boats, the immigration people processing them and the doctor examining and talking about them. There was an African migrant screaming like a gospel preacher about the hardships they had endured and those who have died en route, but for all we saw, the residents seemed to live a life apart and are totally unaffected if not unaware of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have ended up on their small island.

The film did show the comfortable orderly lives of the islanders and their comfortable homes, contrasting with the destitution of the migrants who have lost everything - their homes, jobs, family members and face an uncertain future after a hazardous and sometimes deadly journey, but other than the doctor, no one seemed particularly bothered.

Questions which were not answered, where are the migrants getting all the money for the journey, which seems to cost around $10,000 and more. Just the boat trip from Libya to Lampedusa costs between $1,500 and $850 depending on your place in the boat, and seeing as most of the migrants are from Central Africa, getting to Libya must cost ten times more. What are the smugglers doing with all their money which must run into hundreds of millions by now. Where is it being laundered. What is being done to catch the smugglers? Are the migrants really in peril and facing death, or are they being enticed by the people smugglers with false claims of a land of milk and honey. If the latter, why are they not writing (or phoning on the ubiquitous cell phones) to warn their friends and family not to come? Perhaps it is compassion fatigue, but as we saw the dead migrants being unloaded from the tiny overcrowded boat, I was reminded of the cry of 'Bring out your dead' in the days of the plague.

This documentary film is not in detail like any normal documentary does, to highlight the rights and wrongs. Actually, it speaks less and reveals more through its pictures. So anybody can make their own narration watching this film. The filmmakers left that part empty for you the viewers to decide. But my advice for you if you want to try this, that don't expect it to be about the 'immigration' alone. This film was multi-layered. There are many angles of focus about different topics, but kind of all are connected which is the Mediterranean Sea.

So the common thing in the film is the Sea that divides the two continents, Europe and Africa. This film sets around that region about the people who depended on it for the living, growing up and looking for the fresh life start. But the majority of those who saw it recognise only the refugees who cross the sea. That's wrong to label this film is about the refugees. Around 20-25 per cent of the film concentrated on that issue. Only about their struggle on their journey to the other side, but it reveals nothing on its root cause. If you ask me, I would say only one religion making all this mess in the middle-east, otherwise you won't see the western army in that region.

Some of the clips, the real ones are really disturbing. I won't blame those people who took such risk to get the other side of the sea. Believe me, I'm not a nationalist, so I won't believe in borders and regions that divided over language and ethnicity base. But I do mind the religious. If that was eradicated from the earth's surface, particularly one that's causing all the trouble immediately, we can co-exist peacefully. That's the major issue here, but we're after temporary solution. The film does not say all this, but you will get the clear picture.

"The ships fired rockets and at sea. It was like there was fire at sea."

For me this was an average film. I have seen the much better documentaries than this on various issues of the world. The filmmakers don't want to take sides, so they only revealed the truth by just following and making videos of life in and around the Mediterranean Sea. Like I meantioned earlier, some of the angles do not make any sense or difficult to understand its purpose. I don't know the others, but I have got plenty of questions about the film to ask the filmmakers. If you are like me, welcome aboard.

It was the Italian entry for the 2017 Oscars and it did not make, but found a slot in the list of Best Documentary Feature. This is the first out of five from that category I have seen, so I don't know whether it wins the award or not, but as per the prediction made by film fanatics and critics, this is the frontrunner.

Whatever the result would be, I'm not recommending it particularly the common people. Because the film fails to narrate the story which is very essential from the average peoples' perspective to get the message clear and loud. All one can get with this is only the outline on the very important issue at the moment. Remember how the David Attenborough's narration made to reach all the corners of the earth. Confusing over the purpose of the documentary, possibly misleading. Its like watching a news channel on the mute mode. Otherwise, this should have been one of the best of its kind.

5/10

The subject of this documentary is Lampedusa, a small Italian island south of Sicily. The camera follows the ordinary activities of its local inhabitants while also exposing the migrants who end up there on crowded makeshift boats: Africans fleeing despair and persecution from their various homelands.

The style of this film is cinema-vérité, simply observing the various subjects in a very quiet way. Most of the attention is given to the island residents, particularly a twelve-year old boy. In the beginning, there are occasional feelings of boredom but once getting used to the meditative style, the movie is quite rewarding.

At first, one might wonder why there is less attention on the migrants but this eventually becomes understandable. If they had been the main subject, it is possible the viewer would feel overwhelmed and numb by the end. The smaller number of scenes end up having a greater impact. While not always horrific, the viewer sees up close the people behind the headlines - the migrants as well as the rescuers. Emotions run high before the viewer is bought back to daily routine life on the island which seems very distant from the lives of the migrants.

Director Gianfranco Rosi is very wise in avoiding any methods to heighten the real-life drama. The approach as a simple witness works perfectly especially in some highlighted scenes: the despair of a local doctor who is distressed by the plight of so many; a Nigerian refugee recounting the plight of his former country and finding more trouble in Libya as he and others traveled north; and of course, the indescribable feelings of seeing a large boat with hundreds of people cramped in it.

FIRE AT SEA won the 'Golden Bear' best picture award at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Part documentary, part docudrama, it was filmed on the Italian island of Lampedusa, which lies roughly midway between Libya and Sicily and has become the first port of call for more than 100,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East. Over 15,000 have drowned, dying to be set free from terror and tyranny and poverty.

We see the Italian navy rescuing migrants from their sinking overcrowded boats and dinghies; many of them are in a desperate condition after days at sea. We get glimpses of the 'internment camp'where they wait to be processed and sent on to their uncertain future in a Europe which is increasingly unwelcoming.

Alternating with the refugee crisis, the film's main focus is Samuele, a 12-year-old Lampedusan who lives with his fisherman father and grandmother. The family play themselves in the style of a Pasolini movie (minus the sex and the blasphemy). We watch Samuele slurping spaghetti, struggling with homework, playing with a slingshot. They seem to have a very limited awareness of the migrant situation, although that is perhaps only the director's way of pointing up the contrast between the ordinariness of their lives and the appalling tragedy taking place in the waters around their island.

This heart-wrenching film offers no solution to the crisis. How could it? There clearly isn't one.