Arthouse cinema “lights the fire”, for fake

The poster of Five Devilsinvaded by flames, with Adèle Exarchopoulos looking at the spectator with frightened eyes, did not go unnoticed, says the director of the film, Léa Mysius, on the eve of its theatrical release on Wednesday August 31. “A friend told me it made her think of the scorching fires, but that was not the point”, explains the filmmaker on the phone. As far back as she can remember, the idea was there: “The first image I had of the film was a woman screaming in front of the fire. Without further explanation. » If a track is to be found, it is to be sought in the unconscious, she says. “I had founding readings, like The Psychoanalysis of Fireby Gaston Bachelard [Gallimard, 1938, réédité en 1992], where the philosopher says that the dream precedes the experience. And also sexual night, by Pascal Quignard [Flammarion, 2007], with the idea that children try to imagine how they were designed. Some dream that there are flames, slaughter and screams that precede their conception. » “Light impresses the film, fire impresses the retina”, she concludes, recognizing his attraction to the symbolism of the fire.

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She’s not the only one, and auteur cinema “lights the fire” so to speak, especially in genre films, by resorting to special effects here and there – nothing to do with blockbusters. using fire to orchestrate dramas or deadly attacks. The idea of ​​the brazier is diverted, and comes out of the action movie to mean something else. In Will-o’-the-wispby Joao Pedro Rodrigues (in theaters Wednesday, September 14), the Portuguese filmmaker uses the imagery of the firefighter, heroized, sexualized, to imagine a gay, postcolonial romance between a blond angel and a black beauty in uniform – against a backdrop of forest fires.

At the Locarno Film Festival, which took place from August 3 to 13, while firefighters were on deck, all over the world, the short film by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, Gotta watch the fire or burn in it, could only attract attention: we are in Corsica, and a woman dressed all in black is setting fire (for fakes) to certain places on the island, where the concreting has caused irreparable damage. The director born in Corsica explains: “The idea for the film came from seeing the territory deteriorate, the formatted habitat, the installation of a hypermarket, etc. I remember a sentence from my mother: the ashes do not burn twice. The fire, in the film, is like a tool that cauterizes”, says Caroline Poggi. Jonathan Vinel adds: “We ask a question. What do we want to preserve basically, and what would we like to get rid of? »

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