Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within)

The third in our little Louis Malle season, this was the best I think.

The story is of a alcoholic man in his (guessing) thirties, who has been told he is now "cured" yet still lives at an upmarket clinic in Versailles. Having vowed to kill himself "tomorrow", Alain goes to Paris, where he meets old friends and faces the crazy days of his youth.

It was a good film, and I liked it a lot, but I can't think of a word to describe it. It wasn't "wonderful", or "brilliant". Of course it wasn't funny. I suppose "elegiac" would be a good description of the atmosphere, if not of Alain. He is not particularly desirous of his past life as a man-about-town, and the women that gaze at him are met with aloofness.

In fact, as a protagonist he is curiously unloved. The film shows him ambiguously. His friends variously riff on the same "grow up, you're an adult now" message but his heartfelt pleas to connect with something ("to touch" is the word he uses) are genuine. This path is well-chosen by Malle. Its effect means the viewer sees an environment of conflicting world views, those of Alain's friends who have given up possibilities for "securities" and find an equally intense life there, and those of Alain who sees in their securities a great bourgeoising of his friends, a dulling of experience.

This is so well created that the suicide that inevitably ends the film is as downbeat and enigmatic affair as it should be, providing neither closure nor conclusion.

You can watch the whole film here.