Afire
In the beginning of this movie by Christian Petzold, Leon asks his friend Felix about his art portfolio. Leon is an unhealthy looking young man and Felix is a cheerful guy who can’t hear when bad things are about to happen to him. They seem like they wouldn’t be friends except for their shared aesthetic interests. When Felix says that the theme of his portfolio is “Water,” Leon smirks at him: “Water’s not a theme.”
It seems like Petzold is making fun of himself a little bit here; Afire (or Red Sky) is actually the second film in a series of four whose unifying theme will be the elements (last year’s Undine was water). The fire in this film engulfs the forests of some German island where Leon and Felix have gone on vacation.
After their car breaks down and they have to walk to a house owned by Felix’s family, they’re surprised that someone else has already rented it someone named Nadja. It’s Paula Beer playing the beguiling Nadja, her third movie with Petzold so far (she played a mermaid sort of in Undine). You can hear Nadja having enthusiastic sex from outside the house as she and her partner discover each other or maybe you can just hear Leon’s blood boiling or something, because almost everything makes Leon seethe silently but eventually we meet her partner Devid, spelled that way “because he’s from the East.”
He works as a lifeguard at the beach. While Devid fucks around with Felix and Nadja enjoys her summer, Leon frets over his latest novel; his editor is coming to talk about it with him soon after he finds out what hotel near which she sells ice cream during the day asks him what book it is she sells ice cream near. He scoffs the cleaning lady once asked him why one of them was so schmaltzy! and says “Club Sandwich.” Before he finishes that thought, Leon knows what’s going to happen when his editor shows up and tells him what she wants to talk about.
In “Afire,” Petzold really beats up Leon for a long time, and nothing that happens to him makes him any less petulant. When Felix and Devid begin their own sexual relationship which Nadja is fine with, and which Leon watches with mild irritation the stakes of the movie rise dramatically like the fire consuming forest land that the four can see from their rooftop.
Petzold has been quietly but industriously building one of the most dependably impressive filmographies of this century. The compulsively well-read (and well-allusive) dialogue here, along with the precise but unshowy mise-en scene and editing, may bring to mind of all people late Rohmer at his best for some viewers. But as funny as he can be, Petzold is generally a more serious filmmaker than Rohmer, and this movie’s turn toward tragedy is devastating.
That it arrives at an ending that could in some ways be called pat is justified by what comes before it and above all by the actors’ exceptional performances, especially those of Schubert and Beer. Like each of Petzold’s recent pictures, “Afire” grabs you early on and prepares its knockout emotional punch carefully but also startlingly.
Watch Afire For Free On Solarmovies.