Director: Philippe Lesage
Writer: Philippe Lesage
Stars: Noah Parker, Aurelia Arandi-Longpré, Arieh Worthalter, Paul Ahmarani
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Jeff stays at film director Blake Cadieux’s wilderness lodge after being invited by friend Max’s family. When strange events occur, Jeff suspects something is amiss with the director and his retreat.
Festival fatigue, an uncommon level of exhaustion brought on by the seemingly never-ending practice of watching, discussing, reviewing, and thinking about anywhere from three-to-six movies per day, comes for us all. You just don’t know it’s hit you until it wallops you over the head like _______ did when he _______ _______ with a _______ in _______, a Main Slate selection at this year’s New York Film Festival. It happened to me a few moments ago, when I was two revelatory paragraphs into this review of Phillipe Lesage’s Who By Fire – which will have its U.S. premiere at the festival on Sunday, Oct. 6 – only to find that I was basing my thesis around a note I made about an entirely different film. Assuming I was looking at my chicken-scratched thoughts about Who By Fire, I began to write about one of “its” opening title cards: “In the name of friendship.”
It took me a second before realizing that this title card did not, in fact, appear anywhere throughout Lesage’s drama, but instead in the final film I saw on the previous day and thus took notes for on the previous page, Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language. Good film. I quite liked it! Too bad the only thing it has in common with Who By Fire is that it was written and directed by a Canadian and takes place up North. Command + A + Delete. Time to find a new slant.
Or so I thought. As I pondered the Quebecois Lesage’s epically-tense drama about a young man who tags along on his best friend’s trip to visit his father’s old filmmaking partner, the idea that Rankin, a Winnipegger, raised at the beginning of his absurdist comedy came into focus as a pertinent theme at Who By Fire’s core. The journey that Jeff (Noah Parker) takes with Max (Antoine Marchand Gagnon) and his family – his sister, Aliocha (an excellent Antoine Marchand Gagnon), and father, a writer named Albert Gary (Paul Ahmarani) – to the cabin of famed director Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter, magnificent) could very easily be subtitled, “In the name of friendship.” The bonds that Lesage illustrates and unpacks in his film are far more volatile than anything Rankin puts forth in his film, but they are friendships nonetheless. And the complicated ones are often the most fascinating to watch unravel. (Will Bjarnar: 1, Festival Fatigue: 0. Take that, horrid sleep schedule.)
Albert and Blake collaborated back in the day, making enough much-celebrated narrative films that the latter’s successful move to documentary filmmaking still stings the former’s ego. The group of relaxing artists and intellectuals share dinners together in scenes that recur over the course of the film, and as the wine flows and the chicken is carved, spirited debates often evolve into furious arguments, especially between Albert and Blake. During their first meal, Albert asserts that he’s a far better writer than Blake could ever be: “You’re very passionate,” he says, “but that means you want every scene to be rhythmic and contemplative, humorous but tragic… they drag on forever.” Whether or not Lesage is ribbing his own cinematic style here – Who By Fire is his longest film to date, but it’s just as meditative as his 2018 feature Genesis, as well as 2015’s The Demons, which saw him break through as a director – doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that he’s willing to give us individual windows into each character’s psyches the moment they open their mouths. Albert is quick to put his old friend down in an effort to stand tall himself; Blake, the richer, handsomer half of their duo, immediately sideswipes Albert’s children as the reason he’s stopped working on meaningful projects of late. (That is, unless you count the animated series Albert is writing; called Rock Lobster, it’s about a lobster who gets lost in Toronto, and it’s going to be a hit.)
Indeed, Lesage tips his hand early on in Who By Fire, layering his proceedings with a great deal of tension as though he’s itching to run out of frosting before serving up his massive, uber-dramatic cake. But he doesn’t do so in the sense that tells you exactly where his narrative is heading. Sure, an overabundance of long, looong takes – the film begins with an extended oner of a car traveling down a lonely road; no wonder it runs 155 minutes – spell out some things that could ostensibly pass us by as subtle foreshadowing (if not solid clues) were they shown as brief glances. For instance, when he finally cuts away from his opening overhead shot of the family vehicle, Balthazar Lab’s lens lingers on Jeff, Max, and Aliocha, who are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the back seat; Jeff attempts to brush Aliocha’s hand, a gesture she surely notices and evades before he can make contact. (You’ll never guess which one has unrequited feelings for the other.) Yet this moment, while just the first of Jeff’s pervasive efforts to win the heart of his buddy’s sister, hints at but one of many subplots that surge throughout Lesage’s plot. And while there are a great many – perhaps one too, depending on your patience – each receives its fair share of time in the spotlight, assuring that no one is left to wait for the rest to reach their respective resolutions. They unfold in concert, fueling Lesage’s principal effort to tell a tale heavy on uncertainty and yet deftly light on shock value, no matter how certain some of the shocks may feel when they finally do come to pass.
Lesage is also aware that in order to make the events of his film enjoyable on some level, he has to find ways to ease the straining bonds between his characters with every appropriate opportunity, if not every available one. To be clear, the tension is damn-near constant, but Lesage’s dialogue is often laced with wry humor (humorous and tragic, see?) that alleviates the persistent sense that something sinister could be afoot in this vacation home. When Jeff, desperate to make a connection with Aliocha, learns that her brother caught her watching porn featuring one participant who hits the other, he begins to discuss the books they’re reading, maintaining boyish charm until BOOM, he slaps her out of nowhere and sprints out of the room. (Needless to say, what he was going for didn’t work.) Later on, Albert flirts with a heart attack when a special bottle of wine he brought to share with the group – including a famous actress named Hélène (Irène Jacob) and her partner Eddy (Laurent Lucas), who travel from Paris to join the retreat halfway through – doesn’t taste the way he expected. Ahmarani’s physical acting in this scene – the behavior of a revolted man who may or may not have been pranked by his jealous pal – almost rivals the sequence that will surely serve as the preeminent standout stretch of the film, a prolonged dance sequence ironically set to The B-52’s “Rock Lobster.”
Driving much of Who By Fire forward, though, are Jeff’s inability to operate as freely in a new environment as his contemporaries are able to, Aliocha’s brusque modus operandi, and Blake’s dark side, which Parker, Arandi-Longpré, and Worthalter bring to life with furious vivacity that fuels Lesage’s dramatic sensibilities. For Parker, it’s a remarkable turn in what appears to be his first starring role, though if the emotional range on display here is any indication, that won’t be the case for long. Arandi-Longpré, too, gets the first true showcase of her career here, and as Aliocha, she provides a vital sense of humanity and reality amidst an environment oozing with the pus of toxic masculinity’s wounds. Worthalter, on the other hand, has been a reliable performer on both stage and screen for the better part of the last 20 years, but has seen a surge in castability – as well as popularity in Canada and France – since his award-winning supporting performance in Lukas Dhont’s 2018 feature debut, Girl. If, by chance, you were able to catch this year’s The Goldman Case before it vacated Film at Lincoln Center theaters prior to the start of NYFF, you’re undoubtedly well aware of his tenacity as a lead performer. His work in Who by Fire isn’t just another level for him: It’s another stratosphere.
The same could be said for Lesage, whose aforementioned films The Demons and Genesis were both evident influences on his latest and longest feature: The former is based in part on events from its director’s own childhood, like some of Cadieux’s films in Who by Fire are on his, while the latter focuses on two half-siblings who struggle with their own flailing, ill-defined romances. Those elements are (obviously) at play here, but to see Lesage take on such a massive challenge while mixing so much else – adolescence, lust, rivalries both personal and professional, sexuality, et al. – feels like an invested viewer’s triumph just as much as it is a resounding success for the filmmaker.
It’s clear that he sees himself in many of his characters, and one would only know how much personal intel is poured into this work were they to ask the director directly. That’s what makes it that much braver as a piece of art, not just due to the daunting experience it beckons viewers to take on, but frankly, because most audiences these days tend to be hesitant to invest their time in a near-three-hour intellectual exercise about characters they don’t recognize and lives they might not otherwise invest in. Who by Fire takes the makings of what could have been an overlong, overstuffed, overdramatic melodrama and turns it all inside-out in favor of a richly-stimulating feature about desire and privilege. It may not realize the trappings of life we’re all used to, but it tells a story we can all understand in a way we have yet to see it told. After all, what else do we go to the movies for? You know, other than in the name of friendship.
Who by Fire will celebrate its U.S. Premiere on Sunday, Oct. 6 at the 62nd New York Film Festival. KimStim will release it in theaters later this year.
