Afire

Anyone who has ever spent a good chunk of time creating art is likely very familiar with the fear that comes from the moment when their completely interior creation is finally seen and judged by an exterior audience. Even just the anticipation of an audience reaction is enough to make an artist question everything. You might think that sharing your work with a close friend or loved one can provide some kind of safety buffer, but often their reactions can be even more devastating than those of a stranger.

These fears, and how they can often painfully expose other parts of an artist's life, are central to Christian Petzold's wonderful 10th feature "Afire", the latest in a string of consistently excellent movies from the German director.

Leon (Thomas Schubert) and his friend Felix (Langston Uibel) retreat to a lovely remote Baltic Sea holiday cabin, even as they hear rumblings of wildfires in the area that threaten to approach where they are staying. Leon has a very specific vision of what he wants the trip to be; one of silence and solitude that will allow him to work on his second novel. Immediately just about everything annoys him, including minor trivialities like eating, sleeping and dealing with Felix's far more relaxed vacation spirit, as well as the unexpected double-booking of the cabin with the upbeat Nadja (Petzold's frequent muse Paula Beer).

Leon is a very miserable person, a veritable Eeyore of a character, and even though large chunks of the movie focus on the mundane details leading to his increasing frustration, Petzold holds the viewer's engagement with humor, allowing us to laugh at Leon's curmudgeonly behavior without making us hate him outright. Felix, who is also hoping to spend time working on his own art project, is much more willing to relax, go swimming and, unlike Leon, engage with the world outside of his own skull.

The joys of this external world are perfectly personified by Nadja, a bright and energetic young woman staying in the area as a seasonal worker. Her magnetic personality intrigues Leon, but he is too wrapped up in his own interiority to engage. Leon considers himself to be a "serious artist," and the buffoonery of Nadja and her crew of new friends (including a local lifeguard and Leon's own visiting publisher) is beneath his attention. Leon clearly thinks that it's a romantic ideal to suffer for one's own art, but he's also bitter that everyone else seems to be having a much better time than he is. He can't handle it when Nadja doesn't seem to like his work after he finally relents in showing it to her and goes even crazier when Felix gets great feedback on his own project that seemed to fall out of him so easily without any of the torture Leon has been putting himself through. If Petzold is making a statement about which mode of artistic creation is preferred, it certainly seems to be the one that has its eyes looking up at the world instead of into a mirror.

It's a movie that moves at the pace of a lazy vacation and is much more concerned with ideals over action, but Petzold peppers in plenty of tiny reveals and charged interactions to heighten drama. A late campfire scene approaches screwball comedy, even as the forest fires get closer and closer, leading to some very serious consequences.

Beer's piercing good looks and inquisitive eyes are enough to make anyone get out of their own head for a while, and her attempts to get Leon to abandon his reclusiveness and join the real world are the highlights of the movie. Schubert is excellent as the crabby Leon, portraying behaviors and mannerisms that I was uncomfortable to recognize in myself, and I would bet the same could be said for many people who fancy themselves artists, probably even Petzold himself. It's because of that fact that maybe we still root for Leon, even as we want to yell at the screen and tell him how stupid he's being.

Petzold is a veteran artist operating at the peak of his powers, fully in control of the subtly twisty narrative that is well accompanied by lush cinematography (Hans Fromm) and the dreamy song “In My Mind” by Austrian dream-pop outfit Wallners, which appropriately bookends the movie.

While some might balk at the thought of a movie about the nature of art that spends the majority of its time following a sad artist guy, Petzold manages to turn enough tricks to put you under his spell, leaving you with plenty of ideas to chew on. It's a moving and often profound piece of work that further solidifies Petzold as one of world cinema's most consistently excellent directors.