The Falling Sky

One of the most necessary and scorching pieces of nonfiction storytelling in recent memory, “The Falling Sky” offers no comfort and points fingers with a ferocious righteousness as we stare into the abyss of the inescapable environmental catastrophe so-called “developed nations” have wrought.

The Falling Sky doesn’t spoon-feed you any information; rather, it blows it up your nose. This production, without explanation, works brilliantly in immersing the audience in the electricity of the Reahu ritual. Not knowing what is going on or what is heading towards you instills a discombobulation that allows you to surrender to the void and go with it.

Filled with beauty and fury, the film offers an immersive portrait of an endangered community.

What we need is for the voice of the Yanomami and other groups fighting for their survival to be heard in the world. The filmmakers are achieving it with this documentary.

Technically immaculate and marked by sensorial storytelling, it’s also a film whose undeniable style can overwork the simple message it wants to tell.

Rocha and Carneiro might not equal their subjects when it comes to image-making, but their movie does provide a way for these fantasies to, hopefully, outlive those who seek to wipe them out.

The Falling Sky, in some ways, is also a time travel movie, as we get to peek into the past and see ourselves in people for whom time has stood still.