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Fire Will Come -
Moody, deliberate but not exactly accessible, this Spanish drama kicks off with a bulldozer plowing down trees until it stops in reverence at a much larger, more majestic one. It then diverts to Amador, a pyromaniac who, like the tree, is different than most of society, but like most people we can't easily explain, he is treated much differently. He is released from prison after setting a forest ablaze and returns to his hometown in Galicia, where everyone but his loving mother is suspicious. What follows is a sometimes thought-provoking and sometimes interminable march to what the title promises.
With forest fires becoming more frequent, it's not surprising that there are more movies about them, and it's a nice change of pace to see a non-action one. Filming - with impressive cinematography, I might add - in not only a heavily forested area, but also in a town that has seen better days makes the movie seem more documentary than drama, not to mention makes you wonder if such places are where people like Amador are bred. Speaking of documentaries, the climactic event - which I don't think is a spoiler to mention since it's in the title - actually happened, and the way director Laxe and company film it put me in the (underfunded and undersupplied) firemen’s shoes and proves that there's no substitute for the real thing.
There's plenty to complement about the look and feel of the production, but I wish I could say the same about the characters. Amador is supposed to be a mystery, but he's perhaps too mysterious. In Herzog and Bresson's movies about the lonely and misunderstood - two directors Laxe is obviously inspired by and not just because he uses a non-professional cast - they're able to do this while giving us something to work with, if you will. Despite scenes where Amador bonds with a veterinarian who's treating his mom's horse, so much of the time spent with him seems like filler. Despite Benedicta Sanchez's work as his sympathetic mother, I always felt like I was at a distance. For the ways the movie used forest fires to examine humanity's failings, I give it a mild recommendation. I just wish the rest of the movie hadn’t taken a backseat to the forest fire scenes.
Moody, deliberate but not exactly accessible, this Spanish drama kicks off with a bulldozer plowing down trees until it stops in reverence at a much larger, more majestic one. It then diverts to Amador, a pyromaniac who, like the tree, is different than most of society, but like most people we can't easily explain, he is treated much differently. He is released from prison after setting a forest ablaze and returns to his hometown in Galicia, where everyone but his loving mother is suspicious. What follows is a sometimes thought-provoking and sometimes interminable march to what the title promises.
With forest fires becoming more frequent, it's not surprising that there are more movies about them, and it's a nice change of pace to see a non-action one. Filming - with impressive cinematography, I might add - in not only a heavily forested area, but also in a town that has seen better days makes the movie seem more documentary than drama, not to mention makes you wonder if such places are where people like Amador are bred. Speaking of documentaries, the climactic event - which I don't think is a spoiler to mention since it's in the title - actually happened, and the way director Laxe and company film it put me in the (underfunded and undersupplied) firemen’s shoes and proves that there's no substitute for the real thing.
There's plenty to complement about the look and feel of the production, but I wish I could say the same about the characters. Amador is supposed to be a mystery, but he's perhaps too mysterious. In Herzog and Bresson's movies about the lonely and misunderstood - two directors Laxe is obviously inspired by and not just because he uses a non-professional cast - they're able to do this while giving us something to work with, if you will. Despite scenes where Amador bonds with a veterinarian who's treating his mom's horse, so much of the time spent with him seems like filler. Despite Benedicta Sanchez's work as his sympathetic mother, I always felt like I was at a distance. For the ways the movie used forest fires to examine humanity's failings, I give it a mild recommendation. I just wish the rest of the movie hadn’t taken a backseat to the forest fire scenes.