Those Who Feel The Fire Burning begins with one of the most visceral and compelling opening scenes you'll see in a documentary. On a crowded boat caught in a violent midnight thunderstorm in high seas, the solitary light from a camera shines on the uncountable bodies cramped into the tiny vessel. A girl whispers to her father, "I don't want to go to Europe," before a freak wave throws the cameraman overboard, eventually succumbing to the waves.
The lightning strikes seen from beneath the ocean's surface transition into an overhead view of an unnamed European city and it's at this point we learn that Dutch director Morgan Knibbe's debut feature length is not strictly non-fiction. Instead, Those Who Feel The Fire Burning is poetic cinema, ignoring the boundaries between fact and fiction in favour of a metaphysical exploration of the immigration crisis in Europe.
That cameraman from the first scene re-emerges as a ghost, narrating the story of cultural dislocation and perennial uncertainty facing refugees in Europe. Knibbe's fluid cinematography is beautifully executed, floating like a spectre as the camera follows its subjects from city streets to dilapidated apartments, from immigration offices to abandoned warehouses.
Though Knibbe's method raises questions about the authenticity of his film's action and subjects, the pure poetry of his non-narrative style makes Those Who Feel The Fire Burning essential viewing.
