I wanted to love this film. I was excited about seeing it. It deals with an incredibly important topic. And yet… I’ll readily admit that perhaps I’m not sophisticated enough to understand what the Italian filmmakers were trying to accomplish here. Or perhaps this is why we rarely see a good documentary come out of a country that produces so many amazing narrative films. Regardless, it seems to miss the mark. Fire at Sea is meant to portray the refugee crisis from the island of Lampedusa, far off of Sicily’s shore. Presuming that most viewers probably have never even heard of Lampedusa, the film should introduce the tiny island’s fairly traditional fishing culture and how it has been disrupted by the flow of migrants. We follow two young boys during the typical antics of boyhood, glasses, slingshots, etc. One boy’s father is a fisherman. There’s a doctor. Long shots of diving with a squid fisherman. And Italian coast guard rescue operations. That’s it. It’s almost as if everything that landed on the cutting room floor was taped together. There’s no sense that the island’s life has been disrupted. In fact, it’s underscored by the only interaction you see is one villager lamenting the fate of the poor refugee’s after a radio report. Shots of holding and processing facilities don’t humanize refugees at all. Ultimately, the film seems to do exactly the opposite of what a lengthy documentary should; it dehumanizes those effected by the crisis and lends no new information.