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The Fire Within
The Fire Within
8.6
/10
3,739 Ratings

THE FIRE WITHIN

Le feu follet

Directed by Louis Malle
France, 1963
Drama

Synopsis

Writer Alain Leroy is having a course of treatment in a private hospital because of his problem with alcohol. After deciding to end his life, he leaves the hospital and spends the next twenty-four hours visiting his friends in Paris one last time. Will he find a reason to continue living?

Synopsis

Writer Alain Leroy is having a course of treatment in a private hospital because of his problem with alcohol. After deciding to end his life, he leaves the hospital and spends the next twenty-four hours visiting his friends in Paris one last time. Will he find a reason to continue living?

Our take

One of Malle’s most personal films, this sparse and languid study of a man adrift stars Elevator to the Gallows’s Maurice Ronet in brooding contemplation. A piercing portrait of a writer’s existential crisis and the mental grooves he slips into—later adapted by Joachim Trier in Oslo, August 31st.