ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

wildfires

Rebuilding Paradise – Losing and Finding Community

Towards the end of Rebuilding Paradise, we see a group of California high schoolers taking up a collection for people in Beauregard, Alabama, where tornados had destroyed the town. Those donating did so out of great empathy, because just one year earlier their town of Paradise was wiped out by a wild fire. That sense of empathy infuses this documentary.

Paradise, CA – Piles of debris from burned buildings close to an antique mall in Paradise, CA. (Credit: National Geographic)

On the morning of November 8, 2018, a spark from a PG&E power line started what became known as the Camp Fire. Within a very few hours, the wind-whipped fire had overtaken the town of Paradise (population 26,500), destroying most of the homes and businesses. People had to quickly evacuate, leaving everything behind. They had to drive through smoke that blocked visibility and fire that surrounded them. The first several minutes of the film (mostly cellphone video) are edited together to create a sense of the panic that residents must have felt.

Over the course of the next year, Howard and his team visit Paradise (and nearby Chico where many of the residents were finding emergency housing). We see the pain, the hope, the struggle through the eyes of a few of the residents: Woody Culleton, who describes himself as the former town drunk who went on to be mayor; Michelle John, the superintendent of the schools; Matt Gates, a police officer who saw his house burning while he was busy rescuing others; and a varied group of others, including young families.

Paradise, CA – Officer Matt Gates. (Credit: National Geographic)

It?s tempting to list the various challenges that the people of Paradise faced throughout the year Howard and his crew were following them, but the film really isn?t so much about that as it is about the people themselves. We get to feel as though they are our neighbor. We recognize them not so much as victims as survivors. That is what the film is finally about: what does it mean to survive such an ordeal.

Magalia, CA – The Cox Family in front of their trailer. (National Geographic/Lincoln Else)

As I watched the film, I couldn?t help but note parallels to the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience of the denizens of Paradise is a very concentrated experience of loss and struggle. They face a loss of not just possessions, but of community. They can?t come together as they have in the past. School officials have to figure out how to do school when you have no buildings. Some families left for other towns to provide their children with a sense of normalcy. Little things took on new importance: a Christmas tree lighting, the local ?Gold Nugget Day? parade, an Easter egg hunt amid charred trees, and the high school graduation.

That is why the scene I mention in the beginning of this review struck me as so important. Those high school students were acting as they did because they knew the suffering the people in Alabama were facing?it was the same as they had faced. In a much weaker version, it is what the whole world is facing with the pandemic. And it is a scenario that will repeat again and again in natural and manmade disasters. This film is a reminder of what it means to be a neighbor. The high school collection is how neighbors take care of each other?even neighbors they don?t know.

Paradise, CA – Steve “Woody” Culleton rebuilds his home in Paradise, CA after losing it to the Camp Fire. (Credit: National Geographic)

Rebuilding Paradise is available on virtual cinema through local arthouses.

Sunday at #NBFF20

The Newport Beach Film Festival presented by Pacific Sales continues to bring interesting films that may never make it to a wide distribution, but that doesn?t mean the films aren?t worthy of being seen. That is one of the values of film festivals. I would encourage everyone to look for film festivals near you. (Note that I am including my votes for audience awards. The options for voting are Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor.)

Bushwick Beats is an anthology film with segments directed by A. Sayeeda Moreno, Chloe Sarbib, Brian Shoaf, Sonejuhi Sinha, James Sweeney, and Anu Valia. The common threads for the segments are the theme of unconditional love and the setting of the Bushwick community in Brooklyn. Each segment is its own short story. They include a story of vampire discrimination, a romance of two people who are living 3 years apart, a mother with ALS and her son?s desire to stay with her, and other interesting stories. The segment I found most interesting was ?Wolves? directed by Anu Valia. It is not so much a plotted story as it is slice of life of a day in high school, which includes a couple nice spoken word presentations. (My vote: Good.)

In 2017 a series of fires devastated Napa and Sonoma Counties, the heart of the California wine country. Uncrushable is a documentary dealing with the fires and their aftermath. It is directed by San Francisco chef Tyler Florence, who organized a $500 a plate gourmet meal in a vineyard for 500 people a few weeks after the fires. As we see the planning for the Grateful Table event, we meet some of the residents who lost homes and businesses and some of the first responders who worked in the fires (those are often overlapping categories) and hear their stories of the catastrophic events. But we also see the community response of support and the hope that is going into rebuilding. Prior to the screening we heard from Bill Bracken, a chef with impressive credentials, who left the corporate world to found Bracken?s Kitchen, a homeless/hunger non-profit in Orange County. (Bracken?s Kitchen is a Community Sponsor for the festival.) He noted that the same kind of community spirit that came after the fires is a model for dealing with hunger and homelessness locally. (My vote: Good.) Bushwick Beats plays again on Tuesday.

The Wall of Mexico, from directors Zachary Cotler and Magdaleria Zyzak, is not about the proposed border wall, but it serves as a metaphor (at times bordering on allegory) about the American Dream and desire others have to share in it. The Arista family, wealthy Mexican-Americans, are resented by their poor white townspeople. The Arista daughters Ximena (Carmela Zumbado) and Tanya (Marisol Sacramento) are decadent, bored-with-life bourgeoisie beauties who spend their days and night drinking and snorting. The family has a well that that supposedly has some special qualities. The sell the water at exorbitant prices. But when the water level drops, they fear it is being stolen. A new hired hand, Don (Jackson Rathbone), is assigned to watch the well at night, and later build a wall around it. Don is obsessed with Ximena and Tanya, who alternately toy with him and abuse him. Don serves as something of a stand in for those who want to share in the Dream, but only get a small taste of it. He also represents the way those with wealth tempt workers with the promise of the good life, but never really offer it. I was a bit torn in watching the film. It at times had some very interesting artful shots, but they were more a distraction than addition to the story. Also, the portrayal of the decadence of the daughters was a bit over the top., so it wasn?t as effective a portrayal of American bourgeoisie as it could have been.  And the metaphor really paints an unflattering portrait of the American Dream. Is it really just a myth that we use to exploit the poor while we do all we can to keep it for ourselves? I very much liked the ambition of such a metaphor, but in the end found it a bit heavy-handed. (My vote: Fair, but it’s an excellent fair.) The Wall of Mexico plays again on Tuesday.