Customer Reviews

The Fire Within (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Louis Malle made his film when he was 30, after having had great success, because, as he tells it, he suddenly felt that life had no meaning. Nothing mattered, he said, and so he made this film--about an alcoholic writer just released from a drying-out clinic who calmly decides to kill himself--as a way of exorcising his demons and his depression. He was not an alcoholic himself but had a close friend who'd killed himself. In fact, the actor who plays Alain, the marvelous Maurice Ronet, had periodic problems with alcoholism, and at Malle's insistence, lost 40 lbs. to play the part of the existentially despairing hero. The director was so obsessed with the character of Alain that he had Ronet wear many of his (Malle's) clothes and put his personal effects around the rooms Alain inhabited. The shoot was uncomfortably intense for everyone on the set, because it was so personal for Malle as its director, and for Ronet because the character was so close to who he was.

The disturbing fact of this wholly absorbing film is that for some people there is no fix or cure for life. Some have perceived Alain as self-pitying, lazy, or self-obsessed, but look at the café scene where he watches all the people drift breezily by, in twos and threes, chatting, connected to each other, and you can almost feel the excruciating loneliness of the outsider looking in, unable to feel a part. His reaction is to down his cognac, but he knows the booze can no longer dull the pain he feels that he cannot love or be loved. He loathes himself because he cannot locate that essential capacity in himself and death seems to be the only answer. This is the most eviscerating portrayal of alcoholism and man's search for meaning that I've ever seen, and a sad testament to the fact that people do die of loneliness.

Malle was asked if he regained his sense of meaning after he made this film. Yes, he said, I felt very alive, but I also knew my meaning had to come through being connected to other people. And he was.

Very enchanting film well worth watching several times. Not as depressing as it sounds, it is about an ex-alcoholic, tired of life and/or unable to connect with other humans, visiting the friends who he used to party with for a last time. Beautiful shots, interesting characters, superb acting (also, Jeanne Moreau appears for a few minutes), Paris in the summer. All to the sound of Satie's Gymnopedie...

Louis Malle's The Fire Within (Le feu follet) released in 1963 is a French masterpiece. Yes, I sad it, a masterpiece. Sadly, Louis Malle wasn't as big a name as Godard, Truffuat, Melville, or even Rohmer, that is, until The Criterion Collection, that pinnacle of all film distribution post-VHS since it's inception over 15 years ago, single-handed brought Malle's name to the forefront with it's release of another classic, "Elevator To The Gallows". The re-release made his name as common as the other big three 60's French New Wave auters. As a film buff, I get excited when I go to Criterion's website and see what is coming soon to DVD. They are the gold standard of film. I missed "Elevator From The Gallows" when it was first released, so when "The Lovers" and "The Fire Within" were released simultaneously with the cool cover art I quickly jumped on it. Both films were great but I enjoyed "The Fire Within" to such an extent that I watched it over and over and over throughout the week. "The Fire Within", considered to be in the French New Wave genre, could quite easily be placed in the "Poetic Realism" category with it's poetic similarity to 1930s & mainly 1940s work of Rene Clement, esp "Forbidden Games", and Marcel Carne, whose "Children Of Paradise", arguably the greatest French film and one of the most poetic films ever made by a LARGE studio. I feel extremely fortunate that Criterion exists, in that it opens my eyes to films which I otherwise would not be able to experience. And, of the hundreds of 5 star films they have released, "The Fire Within" ranks up there as one of the greatest.

Even though apparently aged, black and white, and treatment, this film packs a wallop. Timeless themes and beautifully filmed. Definitely not your Hollywood movie, and not a cheerful one either.

My favorite movie.
A story of a Parisian man who comes back from New York
after leaving his wife,and discovers the emptiness of his life.
Very depressing movie even though, very well filmed
everything happens in the Latin quarter of Paris in the 60's.
Great temoignage of what Paris looked like at the time.
With subtitles

Disturbing story about a man approaching 30 who is hospitalized in mental institution. What seems to be a drinking problem has much deeper roots in this troubling person. He has friends, many of them scattered all over Paris. They are mostly artists he has known since he was very young. Long ago they had their adventures together, the usual stuff; drinking, drugs, women, parties. But now they are more or less settled in teh routine of ordinary lives. They are married, with or without children and pursue their youthful dreams more as a sidekick to their day job(s). They have replaced their dreams with responsibilities of paying the bills, raising children or selling commercial art. He is lost: his marriage to an American woman named Dorothy is falling apart, his writing career is going nowhere, and his handsome looks cannot compensate for his feelings of sexual inadequacy. In the world of adolescence lost, he is unable to make transformation of his own and that makes him deeply troubled and depressed. His friends are amazing: accessible, understanding, compassionate and non-judgemental. But that does not seem to be enought. I absolutely loved this movie, becuase I believe that in the point of any adult's life there must have been moment(s) when we all felt so helpless and alone in the world the way this man feels throughout the entire movie. It is wonderful to see Jeanne Moreau in the role of his woman/painter/artist friend whose refuge from the world is drugs (hashish). Maurice Ronet's performance of a man lost is stunning.

This film perfectly captures suicide. The pathology of it. The tragedy of it. The absurdity of it.
In capturing suicide and this prideful, hopeless, self-abusive pathology, it also provides catharsis.
Really the most noble use of film is contained in this picture. Tragedy in the highest sense of the word.

My favorite of many brilliant Louis Malle films. This film is poetic. The dialogue is deep and searching as the main character weaves through the streets of his alcoholic 20's. It is relatable in that many go through a time of vigor and drinking and partying and excess and women or men and somewhere around 25-30 the party is over and its time for family and career, etc. The difference is he found himself alone at this age after years of excess and failed relationships. He doesn't understand the world and it doesn't understand him. What is left for him- he asking throughout, what is there to for someone of his character and delicate temperament. Through whispers and hints, we see glimpses of what he was like when he seemed to own the city. This idea of his former self is fascinating and certainly tragic. Maurice Ronet is very real on the screen- very much alive and heartbreaking. Worth seeing at least twice. Also, check out Malle's Murmur of the Heart (The Criterion Collection) for a completely different but incredible movie.

This is my favorite film. It's equal in depth to the literary works of Nabokov, Flaubert, and Baudelaire. The story is realistic, human, and haunting, the dialog is brilliant, and Maurice Ronet gives the performance of his life. In the "Special Features" that comes on most DVDs I suggest you watch "Jusqu' au 23 Juillet" before you watch the main feature to better appreciate it. This is cinematic art.

What a great movie and a great job by Criterion folks. If you're into 60's French cinema, and Louis Malle in particular, you probably already must know about this. A must have. Notice the gorgeous Alexandra Stewart as Solange...