Afire

Yesterday afternoon I went back to the Broadway (it is my second home) to see Afire, a movie I have been looking forward to ever since it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival this year.  I really loved it because, unfortunately, I relate to the main character a little too well.  Leon (Thomas Schubert) and Felix (Langston Uibel) travel to a vacation house on an island in the Baltic Sea owned by Felix's mother so Leon can finish his second novel before showing it to his editor Helmut (Matthias Brandt) and Felix can work on his photography portfolio.  When they get there Felix is surprised and Leon is dismayed to learn that a woman named Nadja (Paula Beer) is also staying there.  She has a seasonal job selling ice cream at a nearby hotel and is conducting an affair with a lifeguard named Devid (Enno Trebbs).  Leon is attracted to her but he is also judgmental about her personal behavior and looks down on her because of her job.  He is also peevish and pretentious whenever he is around her.  She asks to read his manuscript and is critical of it but he dismisses her opinion because he feels superior to her even though he knows it is not good.  It takes a devastating tragedy, in the form of wildfires slowly enclosing the island, for Leon to find inspiration and to realize that he was wrong about Nadja.  This is a brilliant character study of an incredibly unlikable and self-absorbed man who is also somewhat sympathetic because he knows that he is antisocial but seems unable to help it.  I really liked the juxtaposition between Leon and Felix because Leon is so uptight and struggles to form relationships and to finish his book while Felix is carefree and bonds with both Nadja and Devid and takes stunning photographs of the sea.  Schubert gives a highly nuanced performance filled with subtle glimpses of Leon's vulnerability and insecurity and Beer is luminous as Nadja (she is fantastic in Frantz and Transit), especially in a scene where she recites a poem by Heinrich Heine. Because I have a tendency to be very antisocial and dismissive, I definitely saw myself in Leon (especially when he refuses to participate in activities with others) so I really appreciated the ambiguous but optimistic ending.  The action unfolds very slowly but it is so multilayered that my attention never wavered and I loved it.  I highly recommend seeking it out.

Note:  Leon also wears black almost exclusively so...