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| Director Philippe Lesage |
WHO BY FIRE (Comme le feu) B Canada France (161 mi) 2024 ‘Scope d: Philippe Lesage
Allegedly inspired by the Leonard Cohen song by the same name, Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire (Official Live in London 2008) YouTube (6:26), with its links to the Jewish Yom Kippur prayer Unetanneh Tokef and its references to death, but it is also a song about our life journey and how our experiences, good and bad, welcome and unwelcome, shape the person we become. With many believing he is the heir apparent to Québécois filmmaker Denys Arcand, Lesage is a Canadian director, screenwriter, producer, photographer, and actor who got his start directing documentary films before transitioning to autobiographical-inspired fictional films, winner of the Generation 14plus Grand Prix at Berlinale 2024, which explores youth perspectives, often with challenging, authentic, and unconventional storytelling, carving out the psychological contours of teenagers finding their paths through treacherous emotional landscapes. While there are many good things about this film, it’s still a bit confusing and off-putting, as some of the characters exist, but are nearly invisible, fading into the woodworks, which matches the darkened palette with an almost Rembrandt looking framing, where things easily disappear into the darkness. Also the backstory, whatever it may be, is entirely absent, so whatever history these characters have remains a mystery. For instance, there is the presence of legendary French actress Irène Jacob, a fixture in Kieślowski’s THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE (1991) and THREE COLORS TRILOGY: RED (1994), yet she is barely utilized, appearing only briefly in a role with little consequence. Instead the focus is on the fragility of the male ego, mostly explored through long, tense shots set against the unforgiving Canadian wilderness, highlighting how nature reflects and dismantles the characters’ fragile mindset, whether it be an adult or child perspective. Exploring complex, messy relationships and shifting power dynamics during a secluded wilderness retreat, the film centers on teenage filmmaker wannabe Jeff (Noah Parker), who is clearly trying to find himself, searching for approval from adult role models, but instead encounters a disoriented and unhinged world of adult insecurities, artistic ego, and failed mentorship while visiting an acclaimed director he greatly admires. With a predominance of atmosphere and mood setting the stage, there’s an interesting use of interior dream sequences, where it’s not always recognizable just whose dream we are seeing. 17-year-old Jeff accompanies the family of his best friend, Max (Antoine Marchand Gagnon), his intellectually neurotic screenwriting father Albert (Paul Ahmarani), and Max’s self-asserting, college-aged older sister, Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré in her first feature role), an aspiring writer he has a secret crush on, named after the saintly youngest brother from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, heading to the secluded home of well-known filmmaker and avid outdoorsman Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter) in what is meant to be a happy reunion between two longtime friends and collaborators, but instead of a welcoming occasion, things spin out of control in suffocating fashion, as it dissolves into tension-filled confrontations of vanity and masculinity, where you see the grownups through the eyes and the sensitivity of the young protagonists who are struggling to figure out who they are in the face of outrageous misbehavior on the part of their “role models.”
Opening in a car traveling down the highway sequence that resembles the opening of Christian Petzold’s Afire (Roter Himmel) (2023), or the opening of Gus van Sant’s GERRY, Gerry [2002] Gus Van Sant YouTube (4:27), where it’s even the same car, an old Mercedes, set to the ambient electronic track of The House in the Woods’ Grounded YouTube (9:38), a darkly moody and haunting piece fraught with sensual tension that offers a sense of dread, while also having a hypnotically calming influence, as if breaking the monotony of the journey with the anticipation of an ominous danger that awaits them, capturing a lingering shot of a boy and girl’s hands in the car coming close together without touching, an homage to the opening of the Bresson film A Man Escaped (Un Condamné à Mort s'est échappé) (1956), and a reflection of a growing sense of longing, setting the tone for the film’s meticulous exploration of the changing dynamic of relationships. Bush pilot Blake is there waiting for them in his hydroplane, flying them to one of those northern Canadian lakes that would be impossible to reach otherwise, as there are no roads, yet he plays a prank right from the outset, a practical joke with cruel undertones, Exclusive Clip: Who by Fire - Philippe Lesage (2025) YouTube (1:32), a foreshadowing of what’s to come. As they arrive to this woodland retreat, which is used mostly as a hunting and fishing lodge, what’s immediately apparent is the force of the great outdoors, as they are literally engulfed in nature, where it’s easy to get lost in the woods, yet there’s also a claustrophobic feel of being trapped. Almost immediately, Jeff’s attention focuses on Aliocha, with Max fading into the background, so much so that he’s almost written out of the story entirely, becoming an invisible presence, yet he’s always there, just no longer noticed by Jeff who is fixated on his sister. At an opportune moment, he tries to kiss her, but is flatly rejected, running away in shame afterwards, thoroughly humiliated, spending a harrowing night alone in the woods, completely enveloped in the darkness, taking shelter in another abandoned hunting cabin, eventually rescued the next morning by the searching plane of Blake flying overhead, who also picks up two new guests visiting from Paris, Hélène (Irène Jacob) and her partner, Eddy (Laurent Lucas), representing the educated and elitist elements of society, yet beneath the surface lies a profound dysfunction, reflections of the broader malaise within bourgeois society. Their arrival culminates with another festive dinner, Who by Fire | Clip | Opens March 14 YouTube (1:48), but it takes an ugly turn, with alpha male Blake tormenting the more melodramatic Albert again, this time switching Albert’s prized vintage wine to a cheaper version, which he immediately recognizes, though it’s been poured into the same bottle, leaving him stunned and flabbergasted before sending him into an emotional tailspin, mirroring Jeff’s outburst, building on a similar dynamic that copies the correlation between Jeff and Aliocha with Albert and Blake. Relationships are viewed with themes of exposed vulnerability and acts of deception, erupting in a feverish after dinner sequence of comical and wildly exaggerated dancing to The B-52's - Rock Lobster (Official Music Video) YouTube (7:06), a joyous, anxiety-relieving counterpart to the cruel embarrassment of the earlier sequence, yet happiness feels more like a mirage than any positive development.
Jeff is in for another radical surprise, as he discovers evidence of Blake and Aliocha’s secret affair in the form of witnessing Blake taking naked photographs of Aliocha as he peers from the outside into the cabin window, which immediately changes his perception of both of them. No longer envious, they each become the object of his scorn, calling her a slut who will put out for anyone else but him, even revealing to Albert that he watched Blake drink his prized wine afterwards while joking about the incident, having a good laugh at his expense. It’s a stunning turn of events, as hero-worshipping turns to hatred and scorn, even having thoughts of killing Blake, which plays out like a sick revenge fantasy in his head, evolving into a study of male patriarchy gone wrong. The coup de grâce, however, is an extended ten-minute dinner scene that grows more uncomfortable by the second, with the table serving as a verbal battleground for voicing grievances, laced with mean-spirited insults and humiliation, as Albert expresses unfiltered venom for his old friend, voicing his displeasure about the wine incident, but taking things much further, as old resentments and petty jealousies erupt. With an unsettling tone, combustible tensions soon boil over between the two creative male egos, initially reminiscing over their youthful endeavors, but the mood shifts significantly, as playful bickering leads to brazen insults and hurtful comments, going way over the top in terms of drunken outbursts, taking a slide into the wretchedly vile and repugnant, adding an obnoxious stench into the air. The following morning, hoping a little fresh mountain air might ease the pent-up tension from the night before, they set out in canoes down the river, peaceful at first before the scenes of the group canoeing down the rapids in the middle of the deep woods resembles the ominous danger that awaits them in John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE (1972), as it explodes into a catastrophe on multiple fronts, with several boats capsizing, leading to a horrible tragedy, while a hunt into the mountains shows Jeff eyeing Blake through the scoped sights of his rifle, like an internalized death fantasy, where clearly they have crossed a line of no return. There’s a switch that takes place, as the more the film goes on, the more we’re getting inside Aliocha’s head. No one comes out unscathed in what is essentially a coming-of-age story where innocence veers into the horror-in-the-woods genre, shot in ‘Scope by Balthazar Lab, growing significantly darker and more disturbing, taking its own sweet time at more than two and a half hours, where a good deal of it is staring at a near completely dark screen, with very little outline of anything visible, a visual tactic that definitely tries one’s patience and can get wearying, while the director also has a tendency to interrupt music scenes abruptly, ultimately feeling underwhelming, with not nearly enough dramatic tension, though it is told in a uniquely distinct style. Set in a time before anyone had cell phones or social media accounts, the film is essentially a series of extended conversations that steadily build into heated arguments, reflecting the disillusionment of youth, the failure of adult role models, the effects of toxic masculinity, and the longing for artistic/personal intimacy, as Lesage blends a combination of slowly building naturalism and dread in this lengthy exposé of a wilderness retreat that goes off the rails, spiraling into the depths of the unknown, like an existential venture into the heart of darkness.
While this train wreck of a film has a darker, more psychologically complex edge, featuring really insufferable characters for a prolonged period of time, presenting episodes of aggression and simmering tensions without offering even the slightest satisfaction of closure, it just doesn’t have the character depth or emotional complexity of some of the best movies made about adolescence, like François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959), Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day (Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian) (1991), Olivier Assayas’s Cold Water (L’eau Froide) (1994), André Téchiné’s Wild Reeds (Les Roseaux Sauvages) (1994), Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO (2001), Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World (2001), Andrea Arnold’s FISH TANK (2009), Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now (2013), or Richard Linklater’s 2014 Top Ten List #1 Boyhood, to name a few.
