Who through fire | 4Columns

Isolation, frustration, flirt, friction, friendship: Philippe Lesages latest film is a subtle study of game dynamics during a wilderness vacation from Quebec.

In Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Who through firewritten and staged by Philippe Lesage,
Opened March 14, 2025 In the film in the Lincoln Center, New York City

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Who through fireThe fourth fiction of the quebececois filmmaker Philippe Lesage is a drama of the Turn-the-Screws, which sometimes reminds of the early slow thrillers of his compatriot Denys Arcand. Dirty money (1972). However, Lesages occupation of characters are not the Francophone of Redneck that multiply in the early Arcand, but closer to the well -heeled intellectuals of the older director of the older director The decline of the American Empire (1986); The setting of Who through fire is one of the extensive rural “cottages” in which the Canadian haute bourgeoisie flee north after the Wintertau.

Aurélia Arandi-Longpré as Aliocha and Paul Ahmmarani as Albert in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Albert Middle Ages (Paul Ahmmarani)-Acquisition by his two youthful children Aliocha and Max (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré and Antoine Marchand-Gagnon) and Max 'Best Freund, Jeff (Noah Parker) -St the guest of his old friend Blake (Arieh-Worth. Albert is creative, glasses, weakly from Kinn; Male, continental. Send Aliocha to Bard and has the financial resource thank you for a slightly humiliating TV writing appearance-to pursue his passion for European wines, he obviously does not hurt too bad himself. After he has polished one of the many bottles he brought with him for the trip, his bitterness in relation to the dissolution of her partnership has a tendency to bubble like digestive disorders. Blake has returned the fiction for the documentary – the opposite of Lesage 'trajectory and on this matter from Arcand's. With regard to everything Blake holds on Albert in relation to Albert, he proves more sneaky paths to express them.

Sophie Desmarais as Millie, Irène Jacob as Hélène and Aurélia Arandi-Longpré as Aliocha in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Reading choreography of his ensemble occupation-to the once sought-after actress and her husband (Irène Jacob and Laurent Lucas) from Paris-often belong in deep focus with a half double man, which shows a dexterity in a frame, which is cut at the age of Netflix-Dallic. There is a scene-one of two, and by far the more effective, in which the film abruptly becomes a musical –of the group erupting into impomptu dance party to the b-52's “rock lobster” that finest floor show in a two-and-a-help plus the kinks' Time Tomorrow ”Needle drop in Philippe Garrel's Regular lovers (2005), with an ebully Sophie Desmarais (The live-in editor) who earn special honors. A three-minute tracking absorption of flying the holidaymakers in a river is full of complicated business parts-a faulty hook, a foot trapped in the river bed, the tumbling in a trout, has a hint of absolute effortlessness.

Aurélia Arandi-Longpré as Aliocha and Noah Parker as Jeff in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Rolled up in this film of group dynamics, there is another film, a study in emotional isolation and increasing frustration, the focus of which is the most strange member of the Coterie: Jeff. Parker plays the role with the air of a grumpy, overgrown second grader in permanent breaks, and as soon as the camera sits next to Arandi-LongPré in the back seat of the car after he brushes his hand against her hand, he eliminates that his brush has to do with both excuminated and measurement. A porcelain brunette with thoughtful gray-green eyes and the kind of warm, relaxed behavior, the in vain hope and delusional horniness in flirting and madness is-Aliak is named after the most sacred youngest brother Karamazov and shows the adoption of its name Viser. His attempt to kiss a confused kiss is an evil catastrophe; The consequences indicate that the young man may be more than a small piece of emotionally unbalanced or only an average, incompetent, testosterone teenager who is also obsessed and frightened by sex. Jeff, an emerging director, takes on some consolation in the view that Blake dangles, who calls the child “Spielberg” that the established author appears as a mentor and teaches him the secrets of the enforceable men and professional success.

Arieh Worthalter as Blake and Noah Parker as Jeff in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

In his attention to the dynamics between sexual haves and haven-notes, Who through fire Lee Chang-Dongs may remember another much deleted film with similar thematic concerns, Lee Chang-Dong in 2018 combustionWhich, thanks to the current fascination of the clattering classes with “toxic masculinity”, did not attract little attention. There is even a touch of Faulkner in Lesage's film, as in Lees: Aliocha, whose interests are more prose and poetry than in the middle The sound and anger When Jeff decides to take his step. She works on a novel itself, from which we only learn a little more than from Albert and Blake's films, which are completely unimaginable from their titles alone (alone from their titles (The raid And Lorenzos . . . Something for the data set). The first chapter of Aliocha's book is “the desire to lose” and describes the universal tendency towards self-sabotage-in its calculation a means for humans to “punish themselves because they feel guilty for the existing one”, a rather precise analysis of the fate of chronically disgusting.

Aurélia Arandi-Longpré as Aliakha in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Lesage is not only interested in conflicts based on gender, age and status, but also in the friction between the inner art of the written word and the external art of cinema. His representation of the neurotic, symbiotic relationship between the director and screenwriter – the latter a chimical creature that is somewhere between literature and film – is fantastic acute. However, there is a feeling of despair in the attempts to “open” the thoughtful, distinguished literary aliocha in the homestretch, which play for an end like a series of unsuccessful auditions. (All the more unfortunate is the fact that Arandi-LongPrés modulated excellently, no such concessions needed closely on the investment performance.) Blake will also occur for his humananizing moment before the credits. I do not consider it a revelation that a man who in many reasons seems to be a bit like a tail can love and be loved by his dog, as we learn, is the case for Blake. There are dogs for that.

Noah Parker as Jeff in Who through fire. With the kind permission of Kimstim.

Who through fire However, it is recommended more than his non -conscious performance and nimble blocks. Lesage tries not to put his finger on the scale when presenting his characters, and my own judgment about Blake, which I suspect, says more about my feelings about successful, virile bald head of men who love their dogs than the performance of wordhager or reading. The Who through fire If the spectacular view of Quebec's natural splendor is not astonishing performance in itself – it would be difficult for a cameraman to make such views ugly– But the air of the calm threat from Lesage and his DP, Balthazar Lab, is something beyond the mere picturesque, and there is an unusual, real satisfaction in a film of great nature that makes a room think.

Nick Pinkerton is the author of the book Goodbye, Dragon InnAvailable from Press company flies as part of its Decadent Editions series. You can find his letter via cinematic esoterica among other places on nickpinkerton.substack.com. The sweet eastA film from his original script directed by Sean Price Williams, which is premiered in the Quinzaine Department of the Cinéast 2023 Cannes Film Festival.