AFIRE - Mark Reviews Movies

Afire, Janus Films / Sideshow

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 13, 2023

Everyone is out to get Leon (Thomas Schubert), an author whose writing of his second book isn't going as well as he hoped, and everything is or could be a disaster for him. That, at least, is the perspective of the main character of Afire, a discomforting character study about a guy who doesn't seem aware of how much he self-sabotages and how off-putting his attitude and behavior can be. Writer/director Christian Petzold doesn't judge the man for any of this, but his film certainly allows us to understand him, which only makes his brand of self-imposed isolation and victimhood a bit tragic.

The story is set in Germany, near a resort town close to the Baltic Sea. Leon and his best—actually, maybe only—friend Felix (Langston Uibel) have arrived there to stay at the remote summer home, located within walking distance of the beach and surrounded by lush forest, of the friend's family. It's a lovely spot, but nothing seems good enough for Leon.

To be fair, a few things out of his control go wrong even before the pair arrive at the cottage. Felix's car breaks down on an out-of-the-way road approaching the town, leaving the two to take a shortcut through the woods. At one point, Felix playfully scares his friend on the walk, and Leon's unamused and angry reaction pretty much sums up the notion that there's a cloud of misery hovering over this guy, no matter the circumstances.

Things get worse for him upon the friends' arrival at the house. Someone else, the niece of one of the mother's co-workers, is already staying there. If the mess she has left behind and her taking up the bigger of the only two bedrooms in the house aren't enough of an issue for Leon, her music and the sounds of obviously pleasurable fun she's having with a guy in the night seal his thinking of this stranger.

On the second night of that, Leon makes a big show of moving outside to sleep on a chair in the little pergola, which has also become his writing space, since he has to share a room with Felix. Shortly after heading out there, he spots the guy who had been with the mysterious housemate leave, and while that would be a sign that the house will be quiet, returning inside wouldn't make the passive-aggressive point Leon has to make.

More and more inconveniences arise, both of the real and the imagined varieties, but for Leon, each one is a cause for doubt, despair, dread, and defeat. Waiting for a visit from his editor at the publishing house, Lean is "on deadline," after all, and any writer—or those who know one—will recognize the implied severity of that phrase, whether or not it's serious for said writer in the slightest at the moment it's being spoken. Here, Leon is annoyed that Felix, who is also but legitimately working on a photography project, wants to spend some time at the beach and fix a hole in the roof that will result in mold if left alone.

If he were actually getting any work completed on his manuscript, there might be a reason for Leon's mood. Instead, he's barely doing anything, but he makes sure to put on the appearance of doing so—even running back to his laptop, pretending to be working even though he was listening to music inside, after spotting Felix coming back from the beach. That moment feels a bit too accurate for comfort.

Petzold fills his film with such details, meaning that, while the story is an inherently repetitive one, we come to see the range and extent of how miserable Leon can and does make himself, in spite of how many opportunities to not be miserable surround him at any given moment. The key among those opportunities is the presence of the unexpected housemate. She's Nadja (Paula Beer), who has a lovely and gracious demeanor—despite how Leon's sight-unseen opinion of her might have colored our anticipation of her arrival in this story.

She, Felix, and Devid (Enno Trebs)—a local rescue swimmer who has been Nadja's nightly guest but immediately becomes part of the group—go to the beach and into town, make and have dinner together, and just enjoy each other's company. When he joins them, Leon just looks uncomfortable, insinuates a string of insults about Devid, and more or less makes himself unwelcome. Regardless, Nadja tries, showing genuine interest in his book, but it's only a matter of time before Leon, who's clearly infatuated with the woman he despised before meeting, finds a rationale to look down upon her again.

There's a level of specificity here that elevates what is, for a while, one-note material about a character whose company is intentionally undesirable. Schubert's performance is as admirably thorny as Beer's is disarmingly charming, and it's important how Petzold creates the sense of a whole other world involving Nadja, Felix, and Devid off-screen, as their bonds adjust or deepen without Leon realizing it. The guy doesn't realize a lot, especially and, for the way this story eventually turns, most importantly in regards to who Nadja is and wild fires spreading in the area (There are a couple almost-metaphorical moments of Leon hearing helicopters overhead but being unable to see them).

In the third act, Petzold's film finds the almost comical culmination of Leon's stubbornness, with the arrival of the editor (played by Matthias Brandt), and puts it against an apocalyptic vision of the character's self-involved, unaware attitude being challenged. It's a moment of catharsis that Afire earns by way of its pointed observations and an epilogue that re-contextualizes the story's perspective. Maybe it's not just Petzold who truly understands the kind of person Leon has been, and ultimately, that's an encouraging notion.

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