Film Review - The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

4 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | May 18, 2024

With the summer blockbuster season in full swing—and with the most studio releases punching below expectations on Rotten Tomatoes—I found myself drawn this week to a real-life thriller streaming on Netflix directed by an award-winning documentarian.

Rory Kennedy (Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and Street Fight) takes contemporary stories ripped from the headlines and expands them into broader human commentaries. That tradition continues beautifully with her latest doc, The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari.

The film is based on a singular and devastating event: the unexpected eruption of an island volcano off the coast of New Zealand. At the center of the terror is a rescue mission that tries to save 47 unsuspecting tourists caught in the blast. Only 25 would eventually survive, and how they did becomes the emotional pulse of the story.

Kennedy and her team take an effective “tick-tock” approach to exploring the tragedy, beginning first by establishing the backstories of the tourists and where and how they came to New Zealand in an hour-by-hour countdown to the eruption. They are an international group of families traveling together, newlyweds on their honeymoon, experienced guides, and Natives from the coastal town of Whakatane with a long cultural connection to Whakaari, also known as the White Island.

The island sits almost 30 miles off the coast, a natural wonder complete with a slow and constant white plume of steam. It’s an icon of nature for the Maori people who have called this place home for centuries.

Geologically, the stratovolcano began forming almost 200,000 years ago with little regard for or contact with us. That is, until the introduction of sightseeing boats, helicopter tours, and a booming economy of adventure-tourism began to bring a steady stream of visitors to the active crater hoping for the selfies of a lifetime.

Far from being afraid, the guests and guides marvel at the spectacular sulfur colors of the rock, the epic vastness of the steam lakes, and the sense of being in another world. Armed only with brief safety training and gas masks that are more reassuring than effective, no one is prepared when the worst happens and the volcano erupts in 2019, enclosing the island with intense steam for two full minutes and creating a rescue mission unlike any other.

Using phone footage, audio recordings, and the narration of the rescuers, The Volcano moves to what it will be: a haunting and desperate portrait of the will to live and the instinctual desire to help others survive. It’s emotionally riveting and notably never exploits the raw visual horror of the event. Instead, the film forces us into the minds of those that experienced it and inevitably forces us to imagine how we might respond.

What makes the story unique to the genre is these weren’t rich adventurers knowingly risking their lives for glory. They were normal people stepping off cruise ships who had been led there with a false sense of safety, the consequences of which will follow them for the rest of their precious lives. (Tragically, some won’t ever even have that chance.) I believe the story will force you to question our human hubris while reaffirming the beauty of our human hearts at the same time.

Like so many of Kennedy’s films, it’s a delicate dichotomy well worth exploring.