The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari, the latest documentary from Rory Kennedy, has been slowly climbing up the Netflix charts since its release on Dec. 16. The film now holds the top spot on the Netflix Top 10 films in the U.S. chart. The Volcano centers on the December 2019 eruption of Whakaari in New Zealand and those who were rescued from the island.
On Dec. 9, 2019, Whakaari (also known as White Island) exploded, with 47 tourists and guides on the island. Twenty-two people were killed and 25 others were injured. The bodies of two victims were never recovered and they were later declared dead. Thanks to the ongoing seismic activity, poor weather, low visibility, and toxic gases, the rescue operation was difficult. Before the eruption, Whakaari was a popular tourist destination for anyone visiting New Zealand, but there have been no tours since the 2019 explosion. Kennedy included interviews with many of the survivors.
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The Volcano‘s success on Netflix at this time is surprising since the streamer’s charts are usually dominated by its holiday content. It is the only documentary in the Top 10 as of this writing. The other films at the top are Prisoners, Bullet Train, I Believe in Santa, A Not So Merry Christmas, A Bad Moms Christmas, The Big 4, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Trolls, and Sing 2.
The Volcano was written by Mark Bailey and Dallas Brennan Rexer, who also serve as producers. Ron Howard, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brian Grazer, Jennifer Davisson, and Phillip Watson are the executive producers. Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes are also producers. Dominic Fryer, Mike Jonathan, Mark Lapwood, and Murray Milne are the cinematographers. It is an Imagine Documentaries, Appian Way, and Moxie Films Production.
Kennedy previously worked with Netflix on Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, which was released in February. The film covers the glitches of the Boeing 737 MAX that led to the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. For The Volcano, Kennedy chose to go with a “minute-by-minute” structure.
“For me, different subjects appeal for different reasons-be it an issue that strikes a chord, characters that move me, events that resonate,” Kennedy explained to Filmmaker Magazine. “Not that it is necessarily ever just one thing. From the beginning, The Volcano struck me largely as an event-a harrowing, lethal event, an eruption that happened at a specific time on a specific day and set into motion a specific narrative. So, from the start, my impulse was to try to render that event with the belief that the characters involved would emerge and define themselves through their relationship to it, through their choices and actions in the face of that eruption. Similarly, my hope was that whatever meaning one might extract from that day, it too would come out of absorbing what had happened and spending time with the people involved.”
