Getting your player ready...
“Let the Fire Burn,” a searing documentary about the standoff between the radical black commune MOVE and the city of Philadelphia, uses no narrators, talking heads or graphics to tell its devastating story. It doesn’t need to. Instead, director Jason Osder and his excellent editor, Nels Bangerter, rely solely on archival footage to spin a balanced film that culminates in a tragic 1985 blaze that leaves 11 people (five of them children) dead and 61 homes in ashes. It’s mesmerizing from the get-go, and you will find yourself admiring how the filmmakers have woven all these archival threads into a cohesive, tense story line.
