It begins with an image of staggering horror and beauty: flames and smoke engulfing a line of trees, the sounds of crackling and popping overtaking the natural landscape, signifying its rapid destruction. Director Nicolás Molina lingers on this shot for quite some time before cutting to a closer up look at the trees, then pulling back again for a long shot of plumes of smoke rolling across the hills against an orange sky. When he cuts again, it’s on a close up of a painting: medals of honor adorning an image of a fire chief. This is our introduction to who his documentary Pirópolis centers on, and what they are battling against: the members of the fifth company of the Pompe France, a volunteer firefighting brigade in the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, Molina’s home city. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the historic town, already at a high risk of forest fires due to drought and its location, has been increasingly susceptible to wildfires the last few years thanks to global warming and the negative environmental impact its eucalyptus monocultures have on the soil.
Pirópolis unveils this tale of climate change and the people and places it directly impacts in a cinema vérité format. Much of this information is delivered quickly and succinctly at the start of the film by Baptista, a French firefighter who arrives to instruct the team on new techniques to fight the increasingly catastrophic fires, which just last summer claimed over 100 lives and 12,500 homes, most of them in or near impoverished neighborhoods. Molina gets incredibly close to the Pompe France at a pivotal time for the company; at the same time Baptista visits, the long-standing brigade is prompted to change with the times, which includes creating space for the women looking to join the predominantly male crew. Running parallel to the story of the wildfires is footage of protests and civil unrest erupting in the streets as Chile prepares to adopt a new constitution in opposition to its former dictatorship. Valparaíso is in flames, both literally and figuratively.
Interspersed throughout the film are scenes similar to that which opens Pirópolis: remarkably immersive scenes of wildfires and the fighters attempting to quell them that plunges the viewer directly in the middle of the action and danger. These sequences accomplish more than any facts and figures that get thrown out to convey the environmental crisis Valparaíso is facing, and by extension, other areas across the world (us North Americans need only look to the now-annual evacuations that occur in heavily-populated areas of southern California, or the wildfire smoke that drifts to the United States from Canada, painting the sky in otherworldly shades of orange). They also emphasize how much fire-fighting is a community effort; this is not a paid gig for members of the Pompe France, and in one scene of a devastating and sadly fatal building fire toward the end of the film, citizens who aren’t officially firefighters still come to their aid. That alone is riveting stuff, but Molina’s peek at the Pompe France behind the curtain, dropping in on both sobering conversations and joyful celebrations amongst the crew (as well as glimpses of their daily life at the firehouse), adds a human layer to the movie’s messaging, putting faces and names to the people who risk so much for their community (particularly their captain, a charismatic leader with a sense of humor who wears his care for his people and his job on his face). At 73 minutes, Pirópolis arguably could have been longer and richer, with a tad more focus directed toward the social issue of much of the environmental problems occurring around low class neighborhoods, and the inclusion of women in the crew and Chile’s larger political tension, which as it stands feels rather slight. Still, Pirópolis works as a terrifying and gorgeously-shot first-hand account of humanity’s need to adapt: to a new government, to a new environment, and to a more open-minded and inclusive generation.
Pirópolis had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival on June 8. Runtime: 73 minutes.
Katie at the Movies 