The last days in the life of a disillusioned man are examined with subtle restraint in this Louis Malle film, THE FIRE WITHIN (U.S. title).
MAURICE RONET is the man, one of the great French stars of the '60s. It's a very stark drama from a French novel and it will capture your interest from the beginning. Ronet is a recovering alcoholic at a clinic who toys with the idea of using a gun to end his feelings of "contant anxiety". His life is empty without love or meaningful relationships. "I keep thinking something will happen tomorrow," he tells a doctor. "But what?" You'd think the doctor would notice the suicidal newspaper clippings on his wall next to the mirror, including a huge candid photo of Marilyn Monroe. If anyone was looking carefully for signs, they were there.
Ronet plays the quiet intellectual with understated nuances but is always inside his character. He's in the Laurence Harvey category of sensitive British character actor and is never showy in a role that some might have been tempted to overplay. He has chosen a date on which he intends to end it all and spends the last days of his life saying farewell to friends. The theme was too depressing to have wide audience appeal and the film was a box-office failure for Malle.
Much of the film gets bogged down in too much intellectual discussion relating to Ronet's particular "illness" and nothing is ever resolved in any of these rather empty talks. It's a downbeat story with an ending that is inevitable.
Worthwhile, but not the sort of film you're likely to want to indulge in more than once, too cold and clinical in treatment.
MAURICE RONET is the man, one of the great French stars of the '60s. It's a very stark drama from a French novel and it will capture your interest from the beginning. Ronet is a recovering alcoholic at a clinic who toys with the idea of using a gun to end his feelings of "contant anxiety". His life is empty without love or meaningful relationships. "I keep thinking something will happen tomorrow," he tells a doctor. "But what?" You'd think the doctor would notice the suicidal newspaper clippings on his wall next to the mirror, including a huge candid photo of Marilyn Monroe. If anyone was looking carefully for signs, they were there.
Ronet plays the quiet intellectual with understated nuances but is always inside his character. He's in the Laurence Harvey category of sensitive British character actor and is never showy in a role that some might have been tempted to overplay. He has chosen a date on which he intends to end it all and spends the last days of his life saying farewell to friends. The theme was too depressing to have wide audience appeal and the film was a box-office failure for Malle.
Much of the film gets bogged down in too much intellectual discussion relating to Ronet's particular "illness" and nothing is ever resolved in any of these rather empty talks. It's a downbeat story with an ending that is inevitable.
Worthwhile, but not the sort of film you're likely to want to indulge in more than once, too cold and clinical in treatment.