Christian Petzold’s “Afire” is, for the most part, a mesmerizing character study and probably the best film the German filmmaker has given us. The reviews have been glowing as well with an 85 on Metacritic (based on 22 critics).
This is what you might call a “slowburn,” quite literally, as we are told that the scenic backdrop of the film’s setting is filled with worrisome wild fires.
As these fires rage, a car breaks down on the road. Leon (Thomas Schubert), a 30-something slubbish author, and Felix (Langston Uibel), a student photographer, have to walk the rest of the way to a remote cabin where they’ve planned a work holiday.
Felix’s mother lent him this house in the woods, and accidentally double booked it with family friend Nadja (Paula Beers). Leon is irked to no ends. He needs to work on the draft of his novel. To make matters worse, another visitor, Devid, a good-looking life guard, arrives and further complicates Leon’s work vacation. Adding further insult to injury, Nadja starts having nightly sex with Devid and her moans seep through the thin walls of Leon’s room.
The grouchy Leon, an ego-driven writer, is intrigued by Nadja. And why wouldn’t he be? She’s played by Paula Beer. This beautiful and talented German actress has been Petzold’s muse ever since his 2018 drama “Transit.” “Afire” is their fourth collaboration together and their best.
Schubert is wonderful in his portrayal of the young, frustrated man. His scenes with Beer have an intensity that feels palpable. Nadja’s behavior is accepting, even when the impatient Leon tests her limits — he has a closed off and introverted nature that confounds her.
Meanwhile, we keep being told not to worry about the wildfires in the area; the wind is blowing in from the sea and away from the property, one character remarks. Petzold might be laying the metaphors a tad too thickly here, but I won’t spoil it further for you.
Petzold, the acclaimed director behind “Phoenix,” “Transit” and “Barbara,” has always been a filmmaker who quietly builds his narratives, giving us tiny revelations along the way, focusing on character and interpretations of events over conventional storytelling.
Petzold doesn’t narrow his story into just one theme either. He’s clearly zeroing in on Leon’s bloated artistic ego and telling his story through the eyes of this failed and unlikable author turns the film into a ticking time bomb of manners. Everyone around Leon tries to adapt to his negating attitude.
If, as the story goes along, melodramatic twists seep through the frames, they don’t feel fully unearned, maybe too on-the-nose, but never out of place. Petzold’s obsessions with the inevitability of life and death, and that thin line in between, start to come through as the main theme here.
For most of its runtime, “Afire” is a brilliant dramedy of manners, but its tragic conclusion feels too flat and novelistic. However, it can’t negate the rest of the film’s insightful and easygoing nature, realist filmmaking that is harder to pull off than Petzold makes it look. [B/B+]
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