“Like the film’s ensemble, the viewer leaves this vacation in a state of limbo, left to ponder how these people will be transformed by the events that have transpired.”
With his new film Comme le feu (Who By Fire) premiering in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus sidebar, Canadian filmmaker Philippe Lesage continues his chronicling of teenagers and how they deal with the turbulent emotions raging inside them, this time bringing adults into the mix to create a strange tale of intergenerational bonding and emotional violence. This is a larger ensemble film than Lesage’s previous efforts, following Albert (Paul Ahmarani), a fiftyish TV writer who is visiting his friend and former artistic collaborator Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter) in his forest lodge, accompanied by his two teenage children Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon) and Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré), along with Max’s best friend Jeff (Noah Parker). After an opening sequence that places Aliocha as the focus, the film’s attentions turn to Jeff, a shy and socially awkward teen who is secretly in love with Aliocha and considers Blake Cadieux to be his artistic idol. The seemingly happy reunion between Albert and Blake is interrupted by the presence of Blake’s houseguests Ferran (Guillaume Laurin), Barney (Carlo Harrietha), and Millie (Sophie Desmarais), and more crucially the festering resentments between sad-sack Albert and the domineering Blake. This results in nightly arguments where the two men inevitably conflict over their differing interpretations of how their artistic collaboration ended and the paths they have taken since, in which it is blatantly clear that this is a toxic ‘friendship’.
This all reads as a rich psychological and interpersonal study on paper, but while individual sequences are incredibly engaging there is something curiously underpowered about the end result. At a lengthy 161-minute runtime, Lesage’s characters are watchable but not particularly complex, and Comme le feu struggles to maintain its ‘hangout film’ nature across its runtime. One of the film’s more frustrating elements is the focus on Jeff as the main teenager of the ensemble – there isn’t much to him beyond his unrequited love for Aliocha and the idolization of Blake that inevitably sours, and his one-note awkward and childish behaviour can be alternately compelling and tiresome. However, it must be said that Parker embodies this all incredibly well, and he manages to engender sympathy for Jeff even at his worst moments. Aliocha and the underused Max are much more compelling figures, helped immensely by performances that convey their own frustrations brought on by the hostile environment they find themselves in.
The adult members of the ensemble take on an unsettlingly realistic look at how toxic friendships can become increasingly poisonous over decades, and they all acquit themselves very well. Ahmarani plays a role that could have been incredibly pathetic in the wrong hands; instead he makes Albert an oddly touching figure, one whose alcoholism, grief over his dead wife, and isolation from the Québec film world have made him a total outsider in Blake’s orbit and someone whose self-pity frequently gets the better of him. Worthalter is his total opposite – a charismatic incarnation of the auteur genius and macho outdoorsman who is able to draw people to him, even when he is manipulating any situation to make himself look like the hero or the victim as needed. Even at his worst moments you understand how Blake has managed to create this odd ‘family’ around him. Ahmarani and Worthalter perfectly convey the unease that forms among old friends that have drifted so far apart that they barely remember why they became friends, and their arguments are charged with a sense of emotion that makes them unnervingly documentary-like, even as they occasionally verge into theatricality. The ensemble of houseguests add a necessary relief from the frequent arguments, and it is a pleasure to see Irène Jacob show up in a small role as one of a pair of French interlopers to the group, although it is a shame to see an actress of her stature wasted in a relatively thankless role. It is worth noting as well that the film’s natural setting and the feeling of isolation provoked by the overwhelming forest do much to add to the underlying yet effective sense of tension between the ensemble throughout the film.
Comme le feu never totally finds its footing in mixing teenage angst and a tale of psychological mind games within the ominous wilderness. But several strong sequences – the nightly arguments, a joyous dance sequence set to the B-52s “Rock Lobster”, a climactic rafting trip and subsequent surreal musical interlude, a montage of nightmares – along with a strong ensemble cast, a foreboding atmosphere, and excellent use of music throughout (particularly in the simultaneously dreamy and creepy first five minutes) make Lesage’s tale of intergenerational conflict ultimately worth watching. Like the film’s ensemble, the viewer leaves this vacation in a state of limbo, left to ponder how these people will be transformed by the events that have transpired.