Louis Malle's Le Feu Follet

I still prefer Malle's The Fire Within, which I think is his best movie. It helps that Malle was going through something similar prior to making it.

Oslo, 31 August is great as well, but it has a weaker 1st half with a great 2nd half ( that is more comparable to The Fire Within, in that it focuses more on Anders's disconnection and existential ennui ) . However, I prefer Oslo's somewhat open-ended ending, showing that life still goes on , to Malle's more pessimistic's ending. But in a way, Oslo's ending was even more hopeless and bleak , leaving you with a sense of emptiness . I think the last shots illustrate and tie Anders's condition to the modern world , and how he perceives it. Great ending.


The Fire Within: 10/10
Oslo, 31 August: 8,5/10

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My favourite scene is when anders is sitting on his own in the cafe and hears peoples conversations and imagines what a blonde womans life would look like. As well as showing how detached he feels from society it also suggests he has a kind of sixth sense. It was filmed in a subtle but surreal way almost Brunel like.

For some reason, Oslo... made the estrangement and the dead end the protagonist was facing, a bit more palpable and understandable. In Le Feu Follet, I sort of kept wondering as to what the heck was the matter with the suicidal dude, anyways, while here I never really thought to question it. Maybe it had got something to do with the drug element always looming low on the horizon, rendering the situation more urgent and the goddamn ennui less abstract. On the other hand though I think Malle's film was perhaps a tad more crisply and evocatively shot; in all, they're both very good movies.



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