03/11/2022 - Quentin Reynaud’s third feature film is a low-key affair in a genre that usually promises more intense action

André Dussollier (left) and Alex Lutz (right) in The Blaze

As the planet heats up and even its most privileged populations are now fully aware of weather disruption, the idea of one day having to abandon our homes to run away from a raging fire is becoming less and less remote. Quentin Reynaud’s The Blaze [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival before playing at the Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, initially appears to be an attempt to present this kind of scenario in a more down-to-earth mode than other films about similar situations, most of them from Hollywood: Backdraft starring Kurt Russell or, more recently, Only the Brave with Josh Brolin. Where these two big budget affairs emphasise the spectacular, underlining the idea of the fire as some kind of mythical beast with a will of its own by employing impressive special effects and focusing on teams of firefighters who try to outsmart a huge natural event, Reynaud’s film remains focused instead on one man’s experience and the fire as it affects him. 

Alex Lutz (seen recently in Gaspar Noé’s Vortex [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) is Simon, a father who early on tries and fails to reach his son on the phone. Their difficult relationship echoes that between Simon and his own father, Joseph (André Dussollier), who is staying with him in his house in the south of France. Their somewhat tense exchanges however also betray a kind of grown-up level-headedness, a surrender from both of them to the fact that they simply do not see eye to eye on everything. Simon and his own son have not yet reached that stage, and it is to Reynaud’s and his actors’ credit that the film can suggest so much personal history without falling into crass exposition. 

It could be tempting to criticise in that regard the device of the radio, which Simon and Joseph continually listen to for messages from the authorities regarding nearby forest fires. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that said radio is also a convenient way for Reynaud to hint at a huge catastrophe that we, in fact, do not ever really see. But Simon and Joseph do not see it either, and this is precisely the unconventional source of tension in the film. As father and son find themselves forced to leave the area, Reynaud stays with them, capturing the slow build-up of their anguish and their attempts to stay calm. When they are told to stay in their car, immobile on the road due to traffic, Simon and Joseph remain like this for hours, confident that authorities do know what they are doing even as the fire is getting closer. Although both men are familiar with the local woods and country roads, they stay even when smoke becomes visible (in often rather unconvincing CGI); it takes flames practically leaping up to their car for them to finally get the hell out of there. 

Leaving things until it is too late is one of the themes of The Blaze, though it is such a feature of our modern lives that you could easily miss it. Reynaud, however, rather awkwardly underlines it with flashbacks and dream sequences highlighting Simon’s feelings of guilt about an earlier family tragedy, and the way remorse has kept him away from his son. But these inserts of drama take away from the moment-to-moment tension that the film otherwise constructs very well. More unfortunately, they also betray an overly sentimental approach, one that transpires too in the rather improbable twists of fate that mark Simon and Joseph’s escape. It is a shame, as Lutz’s and Dussollier’s grounded performances held the potential of a moving film that would not need to take shortcuts to emotion. 

The Blaze was produced by Alliance de Production Cinématographique. International sales are handled by StudioCanal.