It is likely that a lot of writers would see their own reflection, however unflattering, in Leon (Thomas Schubert), the protagonist of Christian Petzold’s Afire. I did. At times, I can be like him—living inside one’s own head, shunning human company, preoccupied with thoughts, agonizing for not being able to put them on paper, being self-obsessed yet wound up about one’s own creativity and creation.
Equally real is the oft-held perception by people around us, something that the film also shows, that writing is not “work”, as though it emerges magically, without an effort, from thin air.
However, despite there being a lot to empathise with Leon, he ends up inviting our scorn. On a visit to his friend Felix’s (Langston Uibel) holiday home by the Baltic Sea, he is in search of some peace, quiet, and isolation to dive deep into work and wrap up his second book. While fussing about it, he gets distracted by another occupier of the house, Nadja (Paula Beer), and her nightly dalliances with her lovers. Dissatisfied at his lack of productivity and mindful of his growing attraction for her, he is abrasive and annoying to others for their holiday fun and cheer, something he can’t afford. Meanwhile, the oppressive heat, lack of rain, and forest fires ensure that nature is also in an agitated state, like him.
Afire is as French as a German film can get. It is an eloquent reflection on relationships, friendships, and love navigated, formed and unformed amid creative enterprise with Wallners’ hypnotic and melodious assertion of freedom, the song “In My Mind”, playing oftentimes in the background. The film won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlinale last year and was recently showcased at the Singapore International Film Festival.
In Afire, Petzold turns the typical holiday narrative (he wrote the film when down with COVID and watching Eric Rohmer movies) into an amusing and caustic character study of Leon—egotistical, self-absorbed, and self-centred, resentful, and jealous—with Schubert in great form, living the role from within. Beer is luminous as Nadja, and extremely likeable, unlike Schubert’s annoying Leon. Uibel is charming as Felix, working on his art portfolio on photos of people staring at the sea and, in the process, getting more than friendly with Nadja’s lifeguard lover Devid (Enno Trebbs). The film pivots on and moves along the interactions of the foursome. It is as much about the irritants that define Leon, as the reactions they elicit from the three.
As the forest fires get more intense, so does the mood of the film and of Leon as well. The turning point comes with his disparagement of Nadja (without quite realising who she is for real) for working at an ice cream cart, later allowing her to read his manuscript and then getting upset at her dismissal of it. It gets worse with his publisher Helmut (Matthias Brandt) rejecting it as well.
Petzold gradually replaces the fluid tone with a more uneven narrative, driving the funny towards the steadily darker, unsettling, and harrowing. A bear burnt to death, an emergency visit to the hospital, and tragic loss, is what it takes for Leon to start looking at, acknowledging, and understanding the world around him and find true creativity beyond the confines of his selfish persona. Too heavy a price to pay, perhaps, to get a life amid mortality, appreciate the bioluminescence at the sea in the throes of darkness, learn to smile in melancholy, and embrace life when a lot of time has regrettably slipped by. It’s eventually about Leon rising, metaphorically, from the ashes falling from the sky.
What was my takeaway from Afire? WH Davies’ poem Leisure: “What is this life, if full of care; We have no time to stand and stare.” A good film to end or begin a year with, one that reminds us to hit the pause button every now and then between the play modes and never say no to anything because “work won’t allow it”.
Cinema Without Borders
In this weekly column, the writer introduces you to powerful cinema from across the world
Film: Afire
