NZIFF Film Review: "Fire Will Come" ("O que arde") (2019).

"A story of fire and sacrifice" comes Fire Will Come (O que arde). This drama film directed by Oliver Laxe and written by Laxe and Santiago Fillol. Amador is a notorious Galician arsonist who has been accused of causing a new fire. Lois, a young firefighter, explores the depths of a forest on fire. Their destinies are linked by the power of a mysterious fire.

The film stars Amador Arias Mon, Benedicta Sánchez, Inazio Brao, Nuria Sotelo, Rubén Gómez Coelho, Iván Yáñez and Luis Manuel Guerrero Sánchez. Certain scenes look as if they have been improvised on location and there is something exasperatingly non-committal and provisional about it. But it certainly looks wonderful partly thanks to the credible performances given by the cast.

Laxe favors long scenes, beautiful but slow-moving, of the caravan trudging through the immense landscape. When violence comes late in the film, the camera is so far away we can barely make out what is happening. Don't be afraid. Strengthen your faith. The film takes a rather circuitous route to a concisely unassuming but radical proposition. A movie that panders not at all to Western sensibilities, giving few pointers on a theme beyond the fortifying power of faith. For some viewers, that will be plenty. The cinematography impresses, particularly in long shots of the characters trudging through the snow or -- la Aguirre, the Wrath of God -- descending en masse from great heights. Mauro Herce's cinematography is stunning. There is a strange enchantment woven here. If the film speaks to you at all, you can expect to fall under its spell. An endurance test for anyone not especially keen on films packed with long shots of people traveling through landscapes for minutes at a time. Adventurous viewers are invited to take the road less travelled, and then some, in the film, an enigmatic mountain odyssey by Laxe. Perhaps this is the essence of the film; that self-discovery comes through experience, through daring, through pushing through to see what lies behind. None of them have any idea where this journey will take them, but it is what happens during and not the final destination that should matter to us, especially if Herce is in charge of filming the process. Despite offerings of the open landscapes of Spain, if there's a wild west in the film, it's internal and spiritual, the quest being for meaning in a world that, like the film, doesn't give easy answers. The land is glorious and forbidding and the soundtrack's howling winds whip up and exacerbate the feeling of isolation, but onwards they plod. A hypnotic and fascinating meditation on faith and religion that proposes the encounter of two different timelines (one possesses medieval echoes, while the other is situated in modernity). A film of imposing natural spaces and telluric faces of non-professional actors that fuses the mythical story and genre film with fantasy, western and adventure merging in strange harmony. A film where faith, generosity and the landscape form a story that goes in search of the miracle, as in the great adventures of life.

Simon says Fire Will Come (O que arde) receives:

Also, see my NZIFF review for Kind Hearts and Coronets.