Critics reviews

Malle's film is much more an evocation of the feeling of hopeless dismay than a documentary recreation of its realities. Things flow much more abstrusely, and the narrative often seems to be operating just outside the functional limits of reality; at its most extreme it feels like the dream of a dying man, his consciousness floating off into the ether, reaching back down to the earth he's leaving behind.

When all is said and done, and all the cultural cross-references have been endlessly sifted, The Fire Within remains a very trivial film by a very presumptuous director. Malle's self-pity here is even more boring than Fellini's in 8 1/2 and his personal confession equally unsolicited.