Butler's Cinema Scene

“REBUILDING PARADISE”  My rating: B

95 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The first 10 minutes of Ron Howard’s “Rebuilding Paradise” employ TV news footage, cell phone videos and audio communications between emergency workers to recreate the notorious Camp Fire that in  2018 consumed the northern California town of Paradise, killing more than  80 citizens.

No horror film of recent years is as terrifying as this masterfully edited depiction. You’ll watch with your mouth open in disbelief…that is, if you’re not already reduced to tears.

The ghastliness of those opening minutes are reinforced by the immediate plight of the fire’s survivors. Citizens quite literally got away with only their lives. Everything else — homes, possessions — has been reduced to smoking cinders.

“Rebuilding Paradise” chronicles the first year or so following the disaster, as individuals and the overall community come to grips with the extent of their loss and make tentative first steps toward returning to some kind of normalcy.

It’s not an easy process…or an easy one to watch.  But Howard’s film is at its core a paen to the resiliency of the human spirit (or, if you’re jingoistically inclined, to can-do Americanism)…which means that you leave the experience with a deep appreciation of and a sort of elation about the possibilities we all share.

Howard’s cameras arrived in Paradise so soon after the fire that they caught refugees setting up quarters in school gymnasiums and other public places. (I refer to “Howard’s cameras” in a general sense; there’s no way of knowing how much of the footage was recorded under his supervision and how much came from other sources.)

The film attempts to capture the zeitgeist of a small community, but several key players emerge.

There’s Paradise Mayor Ed Cullanen, a self-described “town drunk” who cleaned up and went into local politics. A police officer who recalls his reunion with a missing citizen (“I’ gave her a hug…I’d been looking for her body”). And school superintendent Michelle John faced the herculean task of building an educational system from square one, knowing that without schools there are no families, and without families there would be no town.

Howard’s approach here might be described as cinema verite lite — it’s an ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic approach.  This works on an emotional level but falls short in a more traditional documentary sense.

For example, the film suggests widespread frustration with the red tape issued by FEMA (residents were told they could not return to their property until it had been cleaned up…how does that work?).  The film asserts that poor maintenance by Pacific Gas and Electric was responsible for the fire’s ignition, but never explores the topic  beyond the anecdotal level. (Although we see a PG&E spokesman being savagely reamed at a public forum; it’s enough to make you feel sorry for the corporate drone.)

Residents found that the water system was so contaminated that it might take years to get things back to normal.

And then there’s the psychological fallout.  We’re talking PTSD on a massive scale.

Of course this isn’t director Howard’s first foray into documentaries. His resume includes such winners as “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years” and “Pavarotti,” efforts that displayed both his cinematic skills and a deep appreciation of his subjects.

But by focusing on everyday folk in extraordinary circumstances, Howard here achieves an almost Capra-esque sensibility.  It’s his cinematic fanfare for the common man, and whatever its shortcomings as journalism, it remains deeply moving.

  | Robert W. Butler