TIFF 2020 film review: 'Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds'
Images courtesy of TIFF.
In regard to cinema, asteroids are usually just fantastical elements of action sci-fi flicks - but the fascinating documentary 'Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds' (screening at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival) explores how these alien objects have shaped human culture, science and mythology for millions and billions of years.
In short: Filmmakers Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer travel the world in search of meteorites that have impacted the Earth and human society.
Entire Discovery Channel and National Geographic specials have explored the apocalyptic devastation of historic asteroid impacts. These dutiful forensic descriptions note how large the rock was that killed the dinosaurs, how fast it was traveling through space and how much ejecta it kicked into the atmosphere. 'Fireball' is amused with those details and seeks to find the deeper spiritual impacts beyond just physical craters.
'Fireball' wonderfully explores the scales of perspective, with the intrepid duo of Herzog and Oppenheimer seeking out meteorites the size of grains of sand and craters so large they can only be observed from space. Herzog's wry narrative is as sharp as ever, as he playfully comments on the arcane geometry of crystals and the blissful ignorance of dogs, unaware of the deadly potential of meteors. The lasting legacy of Herzog will be his deep appreciation for the physical world, an undeniable reverence for timeless otherworldliness and sardonically tying the two concepts together.
For all the advancements of science and civilization, it's remarkable to watch the hunt for interstellar rocks be as straightforward and low-tech as simply looking for space rocks while walking atop a glacier or sifting through puddles for tiny space dust. Yet even illuminating still is seeing the influence of meteors has had on religion, marrying the cold analytics of mineral composition research with the implications of creation and destruction.
Pop culture has demystified meteors to the point of reducing them simply as big disaster that kill a ton of life. Effectively, they've been diminished to large explosions - plot elements in soulless 'man versus nature' blockbusters. 'Fireball' unwinds all that, rightly placing meteors as harbingers of doom, but also marvels at these objects from deep space that haphazardly crossed paths with Earth to reveal the beauty of creation and the potential for destruction.
Final verdict: 'Fireball' is a soulful and mesmerizing search for humanity's connection to the deepest corners of the ancient universe.
Score: 4/5
'Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds' screens during TIFF 2020 and premiers on Apple TV+ on Nov. 13. This documentary is not yet rated and has a running time of 97 minutes.
