Rent Fire Will Come (2019)

Where there's smoke... - Fire Will Come review by CP Customer

Oliver Laxe succeeds in taking us right into the inner life of a remote Galician community in this quietly remarkable film.

The close-quarter images of blazing forests feel very relevant to the increasingly serious wildfires around the world. However, we don't know if Amador started the terrible fire that closes the film, with Laxe giving various hints in the direction of both guilt and innocence. The prevailing impression is one of humanity just about co-existing with the powerful forces of nature in an unforgiving landscape, just as Amador's crime has not been forgotten or forgiven.

At the heart of the film is a wonderfully natural performance by Benedicta Sanchez as Amador's mother. Her small, indomitable frame carries her through a hard-scrabble life with humane dignity and presence.

Galicia gallery. - Fire Will Come review by RhysH

The opening sequence is as amazing as it is puzzling. The woodland is being destroyed, the trees are falling in waves, there is no obvious visual explanation. Could it be the start of some magical surrealist film? The rather mundane reason at the end of the sequence returns the viewer to reality.

The director Laxe takes time over each shot, a gallery of images with space to contemplate each one.

Amador Arias as Amador doesn't have a lot to say, he just observes the world around him. His face a relief map of the surrounding landscape. A wonderful performance from Benedicta Sanchez as his mother. What a life she lives with her three cows. All five mentioned are non-professional actors!

Very Pretty yet almost Plotless Spanish Film set in the Rainy 'Green Spain' of Galicia - Fire Will Come review by PV

I watched this and let it all wash over me, rather like watching a landscape painting at an art gallery. I think that's the best approach as the film is almost wordless, and has the thinnest of ambiguous plots, yet is goodlooking and beautiful in the cinematography. A character study really. No wonder Cannes loved it.

The Galician title WHAT BURNS is better than FIRE WILL COME actually, says more re emotions and landscape. The metaphor is old, pathetic fallacy really, as seen in art from 18th century Romanticism.

SIRAT is the latest film for the same writer-director team btw. Nominated for awards. Have not watched it yet so cannot comment.

We usually see sunny Spain, in films such as SEXY BEAST (2000) or native Spanish ones (though I think Almodovar's soapy melodrama movies are MASSIVELY over-rated).

So nice to see the famously rainy 'Green Spain' in that tourist-free north-west (it matters in the plot to know this I think). Galician (Galego) is a minority language in Spain, spoken just in Galicia the north-west Atlantic region above Portugal and its very similar to Portuguese, I think.

Pretty rather than moving or meaningful.

It is what it is. 3 stars for the cinematography.