Direction: Oliver Laxe
Country: Spain
Ambiguity and judgmental behavior mark Fire Will Come, the third feature film of French-born Spanish cineaste Oliver Laxe (You All Are Captains, 2010; Mimosas, 2016), who co-wrote it with Santiago Fillol.
The story follows Amador Coro (Amador Arias), a convicted arsonist, as he returns to his house in the Galician mountain range of Los Ancares, after doing time for setting a whole mountain on fire. At a first glance he seems welcomed with a certain coldness by his elderly mother, Benedicta (Benedicta Sánchez), but after a while she rejoices in having him in the house and helping her with the few cows she still keeps.
Quiet, aimless and isolated, Amador dismisses the company of the locals and even refuses to work for his neighbor Inazio (Inazio Brao), who is rebuilding a decrepit house and the surrounding area in order to attract tourism. The exception to the rule is Elena (Elena Fernández), a vet who seems to like him but subtly changes posture after hearing about his conviction by the same provocative men who sometimes upset him with questions like: “Amador, do you have a light?”
Advocating 100% of great-looking realism, Laxe drives this caravan of non-professional actors from Sierra de Ancares with unobtrusive rigor and delivers a powerful, if poignant, finale that really gets to you in a strange way.
Purists of the cinema will be in heaven with this unflinching portrait of an inscrutable man who whether looks for a recovery path or to satisfy his most evil inclinations. Some might find the subject too grim and the uncertainties frustrating, in a film that sets its mood through a permanent human melancholy and the natural misty atmosphere that characterizes this part of the Galician landscape. Even if they have a point, I can’t help recommending it for the profound impression it leaves.
