The Fire Within/Le Feu Follet (1963) - Random Movie Review #2 - Part 2

(Read part 1 here: https://silienasrandomreviews.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-fire-withinle-feu-follet-1963.html)

 

Part 2: A Search for Meaning + My Analysis
 

A Search for Meaning (the last half of the movie)

 

Maybe I'll give it one more chance... 

The next morning, Alain wakes up in the loving arm of Madam La Barbinais. He has a glass of juice for breakfast and gets dressed.

And he decides not to kill himself, yet.

Indeed, Alain is getting dressed to go back to Paris, something he didn't hint to the previous day. This desicion is all the more surprising given that just the night before he mumbled to himself that he would end his life.

It is common for suicide victims to bid farewell to their loved ones before committing the act. However, Alain makes it pretty clear that he doesn’t like to return to Paris, as it holds memories he would rather forget. Moreover, as you will see later on, Alain’s choice of friends to visit is pretty random. Two of the friends he tries to contact even don’t have a stable address (the Minville brothers, whom we will mention later). Given Alain’s lack of energy caused by depression and his determination to commit suicide, would it be more logical for him to just use the phone, dial the numbers of people he at least has some good feeling for (Lydia for example), say a brief goodbye and hang up, then kill himself right during the day?

Maybe a more logical answer is that, once again, Alain tries to put off suicide to hopefully find a good reason to live.

Down the existential rabbit hole

Alain sets off on the road. He goes to buy a box of his favorite old cigarette brand and is surprised it's now old of stock. He hitchhikes with two random strangers. He goes to the bank to convert cash from the check. He stands in the middle of a busy road looking confused...

What I'm particularly interested in this sequence is the loud noise of the city. There is very little conversation here, the focus is the noise. Cars come and go, people busy walking around… there's a strong sense of chaos in this sequence, in direct contract with the quietness we saw in the clinic. Sensory overload, that's what Alain is experiencing, highlighted by his confused, disoriented action and facial expression.

 

Apart from the sensory overload, Alain is also confused by how things are not what he think they are. His favorite cigarette brand has long gone. He is no longer surrounded by the calmness and warmth of the people in the clinic; no one wants to talk to him unless he approaches them.

Coupled with the surprise he encountered when entering his favorite old hotel (friends no longer stay there, people he know has changed, Alain is unable to answer questions about his life from old friends…), Alain seems ill-equipped for whatever is waiting for him…

And ionically enough, he is reminded, and will be some more time later in the movie, by the bartender of how much of a flamboyant he used to be. He used to be a fearless playboy, full of life, so unlike this pathetic self he hates. His past is laughing at him mockingly.

The tea party begins

After making some phone calls inside the hotel, Alain processes to begin his journey to meet up with old friends from his past. Alain will go on to four locations; each location is the resident/meeting point of a friend or more, each of whom holds a different ideal of a perfect life. Here are the people Alain meet in chronological order.

Let's meet the first friend: Dubourg. Dubourg was an old comrade of Alain during the war. He is now settled down in a small home, happily married with two children, and has adopted Egypt study as a hobby. Dubourg is therefore a pretty down-to-earth man. He strongly believes that a fulfilled life is that with a roof under the head, food on the table, and a predictable routine for every day. A life with “certainty”. A life so practical, so focused on material fulfillment, that to Alain there is something serious missing.
 

Dubourg represents a “mature” life path. A life path when you bury your youthful past behind and focus on cultivating a grounded life with every “practical” things: a family, a home, food… Dubourg also tries to guide Alain to the same path. He persuades Alain to stop obsessing over lost opportunity and concentrate on things he can still control: his wife and his will to live. He even offers to put Alain up so that he can rebuild his life. 

Alain declines the offer and leave Dubourg. Give up his youth? The good old friend is just too materialistic to him.

Next, we meet Eva. Eva is a woman with no real direction in life. She lives in a secluded spot with a bunch of other poets and artists, who spend most of their time sitting in one place and consuming drugs.

 

At the first sight, Eva seems to be in the same place at Alain. She also shares the same disgust for Dubourg’s lifestyle. So she and Alain quickly find a common ground and start exchanging titbits about their life. Alain thinks he finally found someone who totally gets him, unlike Dubourg. 

But Alain quickly changes his opinion when he steps foot inside Eva’s resident and sees for himself how messed up her poet friends are.

 

Much of a hopeless man he is, Alain isn’t ready to accept the belief that life is meaningless and one can only find meaning in escapism, something the poet tries to impose on Alain in the disguise of trying to find a higher level of consciousness. Even Eva admits at one point that the poets are just running away from life, too scared to face life’s harsh reality. Alain once again stomps away in disgust.

 

The next is the Minville brothers, who meet Alain in a café. Turns out, they are “revolutionaries” and like to stir up political rebels. They have got into troubles with the law many times, but they couldn’t care less. To them, the rebels are part of their identity. They get to connect to several friends through their rebels, and also get to broadcast their belief to the world. The brothers do not attempt to persuade Alain to go on their side, but they are clearly very proud of who they are.

 

Alain, however, can see that the brothers are just rebelling without a cause. They think they are fighting for something, but it is just an excuse they cling onto just to make their life more meaningful than it really is. Alain has no reason to follow their step.

 

After drinking a glass of wine and getting sick, Alain manages to come to the last location: a dinner party thrown by an old lover.

The residents of this mansion are Solange - the old lover, Cyrille – an old friend who has taken Solange, and Maria – another girl Cyrille manages to seduce. On that day, Cyrille and Solange throw a big dinner party for a lot of friends, some of whom unknown to Alain. The couple’s life is everything Alain wants for his life, a large social circle and great popularity among people, especially women. 
 

Alain seems to feel his green-eye monster creeping up on him during the party, as he acts rather awkward and unnatural with almost everyone he interacts with. Finally, motivated by the amount of wine he drinks, he can no longer contain himself and breaks into a long rant about how he feel so small in the party.

 

Solange is at a higher point than Alain, but she is greatly sympathetic toward him. She tries to convince him that he can reach the same level as her too, because the truth is that she is not born in luck. He only need to work on enjoying his life right now, with his wife and his loved ones, and start to be more receptive to life’s goodness.
 

To Alain, this is like asking him to learn to enjoy the faint sun light in his jail cell. He can feel the warmth occasionally, but it doesn’t deny the fact that he is in jail and has to face misery all day. Once again, Alain rejects another life ideal. 

If Alain has gained anything during this trip to Paris, it’s his appetite for alcohol.

A long trip... for nothing

 

Alain has basically goes back to his addicted state before he entered the clinic. The movie doesn’t show us what happens when Alain goes back to the clinic from Paris, but we can already guess that Dr. La Barbinais has to let him stay for some more time. He has started again, just like what he tells the doctor earlier. 

And also, at this point, Alain can see no more point in postponing his suicide attempt. He has basically been presented with every possible meaning of life, but he finds none of them appealing one bit. He has now sealed his fate.

    
He gives the servant a large sum of money to keep her away from his room, locks the door, and quietly cleans up his room, carefully locking away his personal belongings. At one point Solange reminds him of their lunch date, but he declines. The movie ends with Alain lying on his bed and shooting himself in the chest. The last thing the viewers see before the movie fades to black is a close-up of Alain’s dead face and a text that reads:

I'm killing myself because you didn't love me, because I didn't love you. Because our ties were loose, I'm killing myself to tighten them. I leave you with an indelible stain.

There is something really strange about the entire sequence. Despite depicting a suicide, this sequence is oddly dull and boring. There is no music, very few talking, and no other character apart from Alain himself, cleaning up and lying in bed and shooting himself. The entire scene is so bland I can’t help but think that this is intentional. Why does the movie treat Alain’s death in this utterly unemotional manner? Maybe it’s because in the total lack of emotion that the movie wants the viewers to insert their own. They have witnessed Alain’s behavior, his hope, his fear, his regret, and now it’s time for them to form our own opinion on him. Should we be crying at his death? Is his suicide the right answer to everything? 

Ironically, the ending leaves a big impact on the viewers in two ways. First, the shock comes from the striking contrast of what is going on and the ending’s own indifference toward it. Second, with that ending, the movie doesn’t try one bit to mold Alain into anything it wants; it simply presents to us all the fact and leave the judgement to us. 

Speaking of judgement, that brings us to…

My analysis

If you are still here, my readers, I sincerely, wholeheartedly thank you for accompanying me this far. 

As I said before in part 1, there are some reviews for this movie that I can find around the internet, but none is satisfying enough to me. Those reviews also draw their own conclusion on the message of the movie. Since this is a multi-facet movie, you can interpret the movie in any way you want, there is no right or wrong answer. However, my problem with the reviews is that they get so carried away with the so-called “philosophy” symbolism that they fail to present concrete evidence for their reasoning, resulting in an unsatisfying conclusion. 

There are many aspects of the movie that are worth discussing, but that may be a topic for another day. For now, I want to discuss the two interpretations I can form about the message of the movie:

Interpretation #1: Alain’s suicide is an aggressive rebel toward the “mediocre” lifestyle the people around him are leading

This interpretation is the one that most reviews agree on. I just want to clarify further. 

The crucial question that most reviews fail to address properly is why Alain fell into depression in the first place. 

The few hints scattering around the movie provide us bits and pieces of who Alain used to be before his depression. He was a flamboyant with huge popularity among his friend circle. He was also a veteran, which helped boost the admiration he got. His life was full of light, music, fine wine, laughter and hope. What happened next could likely be that his friends started to settle down, Alain could no longer find a company for his seemingly bohemian lifestyle and fell into depression. Alcohol problem and a decline relationship with his wife soon followed.

“Bohemian lifestyle”? Or is it? 

Throughout the movie, I notice that Alain is in constant conflict with himself. He plans a suicide and keeps putting it off. He complains about being lonely, yet he rejects the chance to bond with the two kind women in his clinic. He hates his addiction, yet he is terrified when Dr. La Barbinais tells him he is cured and he is now a free man. And most of all, he thinks there is no hope for his life, yet aggressively fights back when someone finally agrees with him that there’s no hope in life and he should just create a perfect world in his imagination and stay there forever.

Could it be, that deep down, Alain doesn’t want to die, and he would be more than happy to find someone to show him his life is worth it after all? 

Which brings me to this point: Alain rejects help because he can see something is missing in people’s life ideal. Something that would make their lifestyle less superficial. Dr. La Barbinais is too vague in his definition of a good life, and Alain can’t understand what makes him think life is good. Durbourg, whether he knows it or not, is basically sending the message that life is hard and Alain should suck it up and settle down with the more “adult” concerns, which directly clashes with Alain’s burning hope (he writes books, remember?). Eva’s friends are all escapists, once again clashing with Alain’s hope to do something worthwhile with his life. The Minville brothers are active and happy, but they have no real direction in life. And Solange just tells Alain to stop focusing on the negative and enjoy life. Yeah, this advice would work fine if you’d already had your problems sorted out in the first place.

Also, there is a reason why once Alain steps outside his clinic, he is greeted by the deafening noise of the street. The movie also likes to focus a lot on the street noise whenever Alain isn’t talking. It’s like the world is too busy chasing whatever ideals they are holding, just like the friends Alain meets. They are too busy building their life with a superficial sense of contentment. Alain shouts in vain to his friends that the life they are leading is not a real life. His words fall on deaf ears. So here, the noise emitted from the people busy leading a superficial life is deafening. It’s like the entire world either doesn’t want to hear Alain, or is trying to drown his voice. 

Alain tries to communicate his frustration to his friends, but what he receives are some head shaking and some condescending advice on how to live his life. Alain doesn’t need life advice, he needs someone to understand he is frustrated and show him the right way. 

Alain feels like he is not heard, at all.
 

So, after realizing the harsh truth that no one understands him no matter how much he talks, the only logical thing to do is? Killing himself, of course, because he doesn’t need to live in a world where he is the only one who wants more from life. Alain doesn’t need the advice he receives from his friends, following any of them means denying himself. He would rather die than putting off his own fire because some people say so. 

Because, the fact that no one understand his life ideal is the very reason why he fell into depression in the first place.

Interpretation #2: Alain is asking too much from life, and he fails to see the goodness of life, which is right in front of him

OK, so we have established that Alain’s depression stems from the inability to find positivity in life. Alain wants to find someone who understand his vision of life, and also helps him fulfill that vision. The people around him don’t understand his vision and just want to live a life he calls “mediocre”. That’s quite a valid reason for him to be depressed. 

But let’s look at things in another perspective, and ask this question: what exactly is Alain’s vision of life anyway? 

Unfortunately, his vision of life is just slightly less vague than that of Dr. La Barbinais. We can gather from the movie that he wants to be an establish writer; he wants to be able to express himself in the most authentic way possible; he also wants to form a tight-knitted relationship in which people love each other truly from the bottom of the heart. 

And… what else?

With such a vague idea, it’s no wonder why he ends up failing to communicate with his friends. If he himself doesn’t know for sure what he wants, then how can he convince people to believe him? I’m not saying that his vision is wrong in any way. It’s just that it needs serious work. Alain needs to seriously steps back and find a way to shape his vision in a more concrete form before he can hope to share it with anyone. 

Alain seems to hold a very unrealistic ideal. Any ideal that is vague and underdeveloped can potentially be unrealistic. Because he himself doesn’t know for sure what he wants, Alain ends up being unsatisfied with everything. Everything ends up staying in that vague level of “it could have been better”. That round of sex with Lydia could have been more pleasurable. Lydia herself could have cared more to stay with him. Dr. La Barbinais could have known more about his relationship with Dorothy. Duborg could have been more spiritual. Eva’s friends could have had more drive. The Minville brothers could have been less directionless. And Solange could have been more aware of life’s struggle. 

In order for Alain to properly define his ideal, he has to do a serious reflection on himself, finding out what he truly wants, in other word, doing some work. Which unfortunately also brings him to… his fear of responsibility.

A pattern repeatedly crops up in Alain’s behavior is his passiveness. He seems to be constantly waiting for something good to come to him. He doesn’t actively go out to change his situation, telling himself that it’s already a bad situation, and waiting for someone to go out and solve his problem for him. There’s a reason why he begs Lydia to stay with him, and there’s a reason why he goes to Paris to meet random friends to ask about life. He is waiting for his problem to magically disappear in the hand of an angel, who would also have to fulfill a frustrated need he doesn’t even know for sure.

This passiveness traps Alain in a victim mentality. He gets angry when Lydia tells him she has to leave. And he is basically frustrated with every single one of his friends, thinking he is the only sane person in the world. The clinic has become a perfect excuse for him not to face life and be the change he wants. After all, you are a miserable wretch of a drunk, why leave and take responsibility at all?

Unfortunately, Alain’s victim mentality has prevented him from seeing for himself how lucky he is. He has a woman who offers him comfort on behalf of his wife. He has two women who also offers unconditional comfort right in his clinic. He has a doctor who cares deeply enough to play chess with him and offer him relationship advice. And he has some friends who are kind enough to set aside some time to work through life issues with him. Sure, Duborg and Solange may not have the best advice, but should Alain be grateful that they at least try hard? And their advice are actually pretty good if you think about it (Alain could move to Duborg’s home as a way to pursue his writing career. Similarly, it wouldn’t hurt to try reconciling with Dorothy and see what happens).

If only, Alain could see these goodness for himself, and realized that the only one who can drag him out of the mug is himself.

Final thought

I’m aware I just made two contradicting interpretations. As I said before, there is no right or wrong answer. You can choose to take any interpretation you want, or draw your own conclusion.

To me personally, both interpretations sound right, and I think the movie intentionally allows this contradiction. 

Because, ultimately, it’s all a matter of personal meaning. Alain is both right and wrong to choose death over life. It’s true that everyone around him is leading a “mediocre” life, but it’s also true that in mediocrity that one finds meaning. After all, why are Alain’s friends so comfortable with their mediocre life? And why do some of them even manage to lead a fulfilled and productive life despite the mediocrity? What isn’t mediocre anyway? It’s all a matter of personal preference. Albert Camus summed it up perfectly with his absurdism theory. Basically, he believed that life in itself has no meaning and things just happen without reason; it’s the human mind that assigns meaning to everything. And it’s because of this meaninglessness that we are free to choose our own meaning, our own path, as long as it suits us. Alain could very much be as happy to put a bullet in his heart as Duborg is to life comfortably with his family. Meaning is just the product of the human mind.

And that’s exactly why this movie still haunts me to this day. I haven’t yet to see any movie that deals with such a serious topic in such a courteous way. And it also pains me to see how the movie slowly fades into obscurity. “Why is life worth it” is actually harder to answer than many people think. There are as much evidence that life is good as there is evidence that life is bad. This movie manages to show the struggle of trying to come up with an answer when one is intelligent enough to see the two sides of the story. But everyone only has one life, so you either find an answer for yourself; or, in true absurdism fashion, accept that there is no answer, at all. 

I’m not familiar with the novel the movie is based on, but I believe that Louis Malle himself was also plagued by the very question in the making of The Fire Within. Fortunately for him and the world, he chose to communicate his frustration through The Fire Within instead of committing suicide out of frustration for the lack of definite answer like Alain, and Jacques Rigaut, the man who started it all.

One final thing before we end this review, as you may have noticed, I have used Alice in Wonderland references during my discussion of Alain’s visit. That is because I could see some parallel between Alain’s journey and Alice’s trip; they both are surreal and involve meeting certain characters that represent aspects of the two characters’ life. Alain’s friends are just so randomly introduced that, there is just something about them that both belong and not belong to the realistic setting of the movie’s world. It is as if the entire trip to Paris isn’t real and the friends are merely metaphors for different answers to Alain’s burning question about life’s meaning. I’m going to end this review with a story of what the journey looks like to me.

Once upon a time, there is a boy who is so full of life and hope. He lives in a village that is so gloomy and he tries hard to make his village a happy place, but with no success. One day, tired of his failure, he asks if it’s even worth trying to gain happiness at all. Something tells him that he will find the answer at a wood far far away. So he packs his bag and head over to the wood.

He meets a strong big bear with a content smile and asks him “what makes you happy?” to which the bear replies “by just fill my tummy, playing with my family, and forgetting the world”. The boy then asks “but how can you be happy when the world isn’t happy?” to which the bear replies “my family and I are happy and it’s all what matters”. The boy shakes his head and leave.

The boy meets a school of fish in a lake. He asks again “what makes you happy?” to which the fish reply “by sleeping all day in the lake and forget the world”. The boy then asks “but how can you live when you don’t go out and find food?” to which the fish reply “if we swim to the river, we will be eaten. So it’s much easier to stay here. We will still die anyway”. The boy shakes his head and leave.

The boy then meets two crows flying above a tree. He asks the crows “what makes you happy?” to which the crows reply “by stealing food from other animals and giving it away”. The boy then asks “who do you give the food to?” to which the crows reply “we don’t know. We just scatter them around. We don’t care who will get it. We just like to steal.” The boy once again shakes his head and leave.

Finally, when it’s nearly night time, the boy meets three peacocks dancing on a hill. He asks the peacocks “what makes you happy?” to which the peacocks reply “by dancing on this hill until we are tired”. The boy then asks “but don’t you worry that at night, lions will catch you and eat you?” to which the peacocks reply “we don’t care. We only know that dancing brings us pleasure. We just like to enjoy our dancing. Would you like to dance with us?” The boy says no and walks away.

Walking back home and disappointed that he cannot find a good answer for his question, the boy suddenly realizes something: everyone has their own definition of happiness, and what causes him to be unhappy is that he tries to impose his own definition of happiness onto other. The wood really has given him the answer to his question after all.

Satisfied with his answer, the boy turns to the wood to say thank, and goes back to the village. Looking at the village, he suddenly discovers that the village is not so gloomy after all.

It was him all along who thought the village was gloomy.