The Fire Within (1963)

 Louis Malle's "The Fire Within"

The first thing I noticed while watching Louis Malle's 1963 film "The Fire Within" was it's lack of music or soundtrack. Aesthetic choice perhaps. After all, Malle is an engineer of the Nouvelle Vague movement. It's safe to assume that some creative liberties were to be used. However, "The Fire Within" was far from the typical style that Nouvelle Vague had become known for.

The film centers on Alain, a rehabilitating alcoholic who vows to kill himself by the end of the week. He is separated from his wife, Dorothy, who is living in New York, while he rehabilitates in a clinic. After leaving the clinic, he meets up with various former friends and associates. None of them are able to convince him that life is worth living, however.

To entrench our character's story with the malaise of his own emptiness, Malle really makes the atmosphere as dry as possible. The story plods along without any kinetic energy. There is a cold, mechanical rigidity to every frame and every scene. It almost reminded me of Ingmar Bergman's "Winter Light" from the same year.

To me, this depressive and empty lack-of-spectacle seems to not only be a reflection of Malle's own mindset during this period, but an observation of the emptiness of modernity. The protagonist, Alain, grew up during the second World War and fought as an adult in the Algerian War. His life has been filled with angst and excitement. Alongside the drama, there has been alcohol and excitable socializing. Now, however, as society moves away from the war period and into a period of comfort, affordability, and peacetime, it has become struck by an arid malaise of meaninglessness. 

The film itself seems to be a self-observational pondering of how to ignite a fire - a sense of meaning or purpose - inside this modern malaise. Malle's commitment to a subjective viewpoint enhances this aridity using a lack of score and an inert propulsion of story. Whether or not one finds "The Fire Within" a 'dramatic' or 'intriguing' venture is left to their interpretation and perspective of an empty life and unfulfilled meaning.