Fire Will Come
(Oliver Laxe)
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come is one of the most fascinating visual and aural experiences I’ve had from a 2019 release. It details the day-in-day-out travails of a convicted pyromaniac named Amador (Amador Arias) who returns home to a Spanish mountain village to live with his elderly mother. Hints of Amador’s past are outlined through his brief interactions with the townspeople, who more or less ostracize the man from the community. The drama, as it were, centers on concerns of Amador’s mental health as he espouses his disdain for the destruction of the verdant greenery of the mountainscape, suggesting his anxieties of encroaching tourists. The minimal interactions that Armador has with the community is most delicately explored with the local vet named Elena (Elena Fernandez), whose kindness is a result of her own ignorance of Amador’s past.
It’s Laxe’s formalism that’s most astonishing. Fire Will Come may be described as glacial in pacing, but the film is rich in textures, in what feels like an intensely muscular effort that demands its audience pay attention to all its ephemeral details. I was especially taken aback by the stunning visage of trees collapsing at beginning of the film, along with the numerous scenes involving the rolling fog that shroud the mountain scenery. It all builds to a moment that we all know is coming, with that ensuing dread keeping me breathless.