Felix (Langston Uibel) and Leon (Thomas Schubert) go on a short retreat away from the city to Felix’s grandfather’s cabin near the Baltic Sea.  Felix plans to finish his photography portfolio for school and Leon, the manuscript for his next novel.  Their plans do not start off well when the car breaks down leaving them to hike the remaining distance to the cabin, and when they arrive, they realize it has been loaned to Felix’s cousin, Nadja (Paula Beer).  The three attempt to get along, though to varying degrees, but when Devid (Enno Trebs), Nadja’s boyfriend, comes to dinner, the niceties shown by Leon give way to tension.  All the while, a forest fire rages setting the whole community on edge. 

Christian Petzold writes and directs Afire, a relationship drama that premiered at the 2023 edition of Berlinale where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize.  The German-language film was quickly picked up for state-side distribution as part of the Janus Contemporaries line of home media.  At only 102 minutes, Petzold’s film never has a dull moment, but most impressive is how he takes his time in allowing the film to take shape and sow the seeds of curiosity in the audience.  That restraint lets us sit like a fly on the wall, as the plot unfolds, and the characters’ patience with each other begins to crumble. 

While an argument can be made that Afire is Leon’s story, it is not immediately apparent, and the film works best when the ensemble is viewed as a cohesive unit, especially in the opening acts.  The film opens with a classic dynamic disparity between Felix and Leon experiencing the stress of travel.  Felix, being the more outgoing and easier-natured of the pair, tries his best to extend the olive branch to Nadja and stay out of her way.  He flaunts around the wooded property, mending the roof of the guest room, arranging dinner plans over breakfast with Nadja, and later, engaging in conversation with Devid at the beach where he is a lifeguard.  We find ourselves willing to follow Felix wherever he goes, but Hans Fromm’s camera is hung up on staying back with Leon, though it is content to gaze at Felix from afar. 

Eventually, we are resigned to spending our time at this little getaway with the misanthropic Leon who becomes more and more unlikeable with each interaction.  Schubert has the difficult task of anchoring the film with such a deeply unlikable and miserable role, and frankly, a role that is downright mean but he is not afraid to prostrate himself in front of the camera and take a beating so we stay invested to see what, if anything, this fool will learn.  One of the most searing images in the entire film is when he is talking to his publisher, Helmut (Matthias Brandt), over the phone, insinuating how uncultured the townspeople are because the hotel manager, Mrs. König (Esther Esche), mispronounced Uwe Johnson when she was showing Leon a room.  Leon turns and sees Mrs. König in the doorway, trying to maintain her composure, while he just sheepishly looks away, embarrassed that he was caught more so than for his actions.  His tantrums continue as he bumps into Nadja on the trail home, spilling the goulash she has bought for dinner.  Back at the house, he agrees to let her read his manuscript – an apology in his narcissistic mind – and again, Fromm’s lens captures another scorned woman when Nadja emerges from her room, disgusted at what she just read.  We will later hear some of the first chapter of “Club Sandwich,” read aloud by Helmut during their abbreviated proof meeting which reveals that it is a – thankfully – thin tome of misogynistic musings from its sexually frustrated narrator who shares the same victim mindset of his author.   

While Leon becomes more and more standoffish, a seismic development in the dynamic between the four emerges; Felix and Devid become romantically involved leaving Nadja and Leon to amuse themselves in the lonely evening hours.  Nadja seems largely apathetic about the puppy love shared between the two, but for Leon, this is yet another personal attack.  There is a read of the film where Leon has harbored feelings for Felix given some of their interactions and how Fromm is always quick to catch a glance of Felix walking around sun hot and shirtless, so this is another example of life piling on poor pathetic Leon.  Before we can really delve into this relationship, though, Petzold does seem to panic a bit and furiously work to wrap things up and in doing so he loses grip of the story ever so slightly.  Afire is already a little too momentous to be a pure slice-of-life film, but the first two acts when we are simply existing under the same boiling summer sun as these characters are pure magic that the plot becomes unwelcome.  Devid and Felix go to tow the car, Helmut suffers a medical emergency, and the winds change bringing the wildfires dangerously close to the shared cabin.  This 1-2-3 punch is purposefully jarring, but it feels panicked writing in a way that the rest of the film was confident in its stasis.

The ending of the film also employs a new tactic, a voiceover from Leon in the third person as the camera follows him and Nadja identifying the charred remains of Felix and Devid, grappling with their grief by the shore, and Nadja’s departure from the cabin.  The action then switches back to an experiential one of Leon working with Helmut on his new novel chronicling this week-long ordeal, though through the lens of fiction.  There is a joke that all writers “steal” from their lives, but Petzold has not crafted this ending as a punchline, rather he is operating with complete sincerity, yet it feels false possibly because of that fictional remove from what we had seen.  This resolution of Leon’s, having finally written his great work at the mere cost of his friend and his partner’s lives and the alienation of a woman who maybe could almost have developed a meaningful relationship with had he ever came down from the pedestal of which he placed himself and talked to her, is not at all a satisfying one.  Even with the added irony that a photo Felix took of Nadja is proposed as the final page of the book – even in his greatest work, Leon is not responsible for the ending – it treats him far too kindly.  Leon takes the loss of everyone around him and morphs it into his own gain, and while he can decry that he suffered too having literally walked through hellfire, he is such a rotten person that to see him come out on top is enough to make our stomach turn against the film even if he is still too sheepish to approach Nadja; or, more likely, too proud to ask forgiveness.  But, alas, sometimes life is not always fair, and if the punishment of loneliness is Leon’s penance, then we should be glad Petzold wrapped thigs up as quickly as he did. 

For a film about a writer, titled Afire – though, the direct German translation is closer to “Red Sky” – and one of the opening lines talks about how the car’s engine “misfired,” it is nowhere near as navel gazey as it initially presents itself to be. Rather, it is a rebuke of the self-centered self-importance that can sometimes be found in the creative spheres. Because it is so focused on Leon, the film is unfortunately short with Beer’s Nadja, and to a lesser extent, Uibel’s Felix that gives the story an almost surreal tone as if these characters were not real people. Through Leon’s perspective, though, they may not be people with agency, but rather space junk that have entered his orbit. It is a harsh read of the film, but Leon is a harsh person, and that Petzold is able to distract us with beautiful imagery and Schubert layers his performance so what initially appears as travel stress eventually reveals itself as pity-fueled narcissism is a major success. Afire may not be a puzzle box or an epic reexamination of a great figure, but it is one of the most meticulously crafted and precise films of the year, and its effects linger with audiences like the char, smoke, and soot that go on to scar the little seaside town.