TIFF Review: ‘Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds’ is an Enlightening Expedition
At 78 years old, Werner Herzog has not lost his momentum. As a bastion of New German Cinema and one of the most distinct voices in documentary filmmaking, his work is driven by his unabashed curiosity for the natural world and those who inhabit it. After peering into active volcanoes together in Into the Inferno (2016), Herzog made friends with renowned Cambridge volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer, and now, years later, the two cross the globe once again to explore the mythic history of meteors.
Traveling from the far reaches of space, meteors are still mostly enigmas to our species. On the off occasion that fragments of mineral and rock strike Earth, it rarely goes unnoticed, the largest of of which have the power to reshape geography and entire civilizations. Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds tries to unravel how and why our collective imagination is sparked by these time and space travelers.
As it turns out, meteors have been associated with life and death long before we knew the fate of the dinosaurs or their possible role in delivering compounds essential to the primordial formation of living organisms. Near the enormous Wolfe Creek Crater in Western Australia, Aboriginal communities recorded meteors as part of their ancestral memory, preserving many details about meteor impacts that make them invaluable scientifically and ethnographically. In India, Herzog notes a comparable irony between a temple dedicated to Shiva and the fact that the same temple is built on the site of an ancient crater, layering both symbols of birth and destruction. The film makes a visit to the official Vatican astronomical observatory while also sending an Islamic representative to film within the Kaaba of Mecca, the location of the sacred Black Stone speculated to be an ancient meteorite. Herzog even touches on videos of meteorites going viral, how we concoct doomsday scenarios in cinema to grapple with the idea of such a destructive fate. Everywhere, these bright, cataclysmic events leave us awestruck, our minds captured by their unpredictable force. Collectively, Oppenheimer and Herzog trace these divine interpretations of meteors across history and cultures to construct an anthropological image; when we witness such things it allows us to wonder the same thing our ancestors did: when will it happen again, and what will become of us?
Fireball maintains an exceptionally balanced approach to its subject by insisting at all times that intellect and awe must be cohabitant. The cosmic beauty is not lost on these scientists, as clinical and exacting as they are. If anything, they are the largest enthusiasts of these phenomena in the world. The film visits the people who dedicate their lives to hunting micrometeorites and cosmic dust particles, and then capturing them artistically. Magnified up to 3000 times their size, the images look like they could be entire planets floating in perfect darkness; each unique in composition, crystallization, and color. They revel in “looking eternity in the eye” through these tiny capsules that have traversed unknown lightyears. It feels similar to the existential cosmos of Patricio Guzmán’s filmography, pondering unknowable visions of space.
The comfortable openness of the documentary style gives us access to leading experts we might expect to be dry and robotic, but their passion and warmth end up surprising us. We are shown the faces of the Pan-STARRS astrologists who watch the sky every night for meteors on a potential collision course with Earth. It reassures us that we can sleep safe, seeing them smiling as they proudly stand sentinel round the clock, coffee maker nearby. Herzog cuts in a clip of the Korean Polar Research Institute’s discovery of a meteorite featuring its explorers falling on the ground crying and laughing in pure ecstasy of the find. The chaotic authenticity of the moment strikes his unorthodox filmmaking cord with he and Oppenheimer, so they venture down to Antarctic to join them on their expedition. The documentary reaches its emotional peak here, in the unbelievable remoteness and emptiness of the frozen ice plains. The setting feels not unlike the expanse of interstellar space, yet, at the same time, the simultaneous concentration of human joy and experience that fills the moment.
Herzog and Oppenheimer’s personalities and perspective are ever present in the film, reemphasizing the pair’s artistic and intellectual balance. Oppenheimer represents objectivity, interfacing with fellow scientists for a more straightforward explanation of their fields. Paired with sweeping cinematography, his precise descriptions of earthshaking meteor collisions allow us to imagine the tremendous scale of the event. Herzog on the other hand, in his one-of-a-kind charm, explains his editing methodology to prevent any esoteric technobabble from alienating the viewer. His signature Bavarian accent leads through narration, including his priceless personal commentary. Most notable of which can be found when the film visits to the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatán Penninsula, the site of the meteor impact that caused the mass extinction event 66 million years ago. In providing his take on this gigantic incident in global history, Herzog describes the local stray dogs too dimwitted to understand its significance, and the nearby beach resort town as “so godforsaken you want to cry.” It wouldn’t be a Herzog documentary any other way.
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