The Fire (2015)
★★★ — The Fire (2015)
Argentine cinema has carved out a distinctive reputation over the past couple of decades, with filmmakers from Buenos Aires and beyond producing work that tends to prize psychological tension and domestic realism over spectacle. Juan Schnitman's The Fire (2015) fits squarely into that tradition. Produced by BD Cine and PASTO, the film is a chamber piece in the truest sense: a couple on the verge of buying a house find themselves holding one hundred thousand dollars in cash for a single day, and that enforced proximity is all the pressure the story needs. It is the kind of modest, concentrated premise that either rewards patience or tests it, depending entirely on the execution. If you are curious how Argentine filmmakers have been handling genre and tone in recent years, it is worth checking out what the country's horror output has been doing too, as in When Evil Lurks, or the more documentary-leaning end of the spectrum with Silence Is a Falling Body.
Schnitman, working from his own script, takes a formal approach that prioritises duration over cutting. The film runs to 95 minutes across a single day, and his choice to hold scenes for an unusually long time places the weight of the whole thing squarely on the performances. It is a demanding directorial decision, the sort that can feel self-indulgent in lesser hands but can equally make a film feel lived-in and honest when the cast are up to it. The principal leads are Pilar Gamboa and Juan Barberini, both well-regarded figures in Argentine film and television, and they are supported by Marcelo D'Andrea, Luciano Suardi and Martín Tchira. Gamboa in particular has built a career on naturalistic, emotionally grounded performances, and a film as reliant on two people simply being believable together as this one lives or dies on that quality.
What The Fire is reaching for, tonally, sits somewhere between slow-burn relationship drama and the kind of polished but unremarkable European art-house fare that tends to divide festival audiences down the middle. It arrives without a tagline and without any obvious commercial hook, which is either refreshing or a warning, depending on your appetite for introspective, dialogue-led storytelling. For those who enjoy films that treat a single location and a ticking clock as sufficient raw material, this is a fairly pure example of the form. For an interesting contrast in how drama can build tension through very different means, it is worth looking at another production from this same period, such as Call Me by Your Name, or the ensemble-focused pressure-cooker approach taken in Monos.
A-Z World Movie Tour Argentina Wow. If you've ever been in a bad relationship... you will FEEL this movie. From the premise I was expecting some double crossing, crime or thievery involvement the $100k but what actually happened was 24 hours in the lives of a couple who should definitely not be together The acting is amazing. You feel every scene. The chemistry between the leads is palpable. The scripting is fantastic. Something I also noticed that I really thought was special was the long, and I mean reaaally long scenes. This wasn't a quick editing job. There was sometimes minute long scenes which must have been tough on the actors. The story itself IS a little lacking. Not much actually happens. It's just a 24 hour arguement. But it's executed so well that you can forgive that, although it does knock it down slightly. The other thing is the unsatisfying ending. With movies it's either escape from reality or reflection of real life but this was SUCH a reflection of real life that it did leave a somewhat sour taste for the ending. 4* is fair.
For me, that observation about the long takes really is the key to understanding what Schnitman was going for. Those extended scenes ask a lot of the audience as well as the actors, and the fact that they largely hold together is a genuine credit to Gamboa and Barberini. The ending sat with me in the way only honestly told stories tend to, uncomfortable but recognisable, the cinematic equivalent of watching someone argue their way out of something good. I can see why some viewers will find it unsatisfying. Life rarely wraps up neatly, and this film has no interest in pretending otherwise. Sometimes the most truthful ending is also the hardest one to sit with.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2015 | Watched: 2025-05-24
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