O que arde

Es brennt im Hinterland Galiziens. Bäume wanken, Asche verdunkelt den Himmel. Amador lebt im Albtraum eines Feuers. Vor Jahren hat er einen Brand verursacht, nun kommt er aus dem Gefängnis zurück, um mit seiner Mutter auf einem kleinen Hof in den Hügeln zu arbeiten. Oliver Laxe folgt dem verschlossenen Mann und bannt seine Heimat melancholisch auf schönes Zelluloid. Wenig wird ausformuliert, alles liegt in den Gesten und Bewegungen. Man fühlt die Spannungen zwischen Harmonie und Horror. Die Welt der Pflanzen, Tiere und Menschen gleitet ineinander. Aber in der Stille des Films knistert es und bahnt sich eine Katastrophe an. (Patrick Holzapfel)

After making two films in Morocco, TODOS VOS SODES CAPITÁNS (2010) and MIMOSAS (2016), Franco-Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe returns to the rustic village in northwest Spain where his grandparents were born to film the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner O QUE ARDE, his most sophisticated feature to date. On screen, when Amador gets out of prison for having started a fire, nobody is waiting for him. He returns to his home town, a small village hidden in the mountains of rural Galicia, to live with his elder mother Benedicta and three cows. Life goes on calmly, following the rhythm of nature, until the night when a fire devastates the region. In his third feature, the writer-director offers a profound meditation on human nature. A rural parable with minimalist storytelling, performed brilliantly by non-professional actors. The film immerses the viewer in the deep eucalyptus forests and unfolds as a tale of solitude and fury capable of perceiving the beauties and horrors of nature, in which the Galician landscape becomes the setting for forceful dramas both internal and external. (Gustavo Beck)