Afire: Christian Petzold’s combustible feast
about 13 months ago (12/02/2023)
Afire: Christian Petzold’s combustible feast – Two Coats of Paint Afire (directed by Christian Petzold), 2023, Leon on the beach (Thomas Schubert) , courtesy of Janus Films Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Instability hovers on several fronts – environmental, political, economic – and German filmmaker Christian Petzold manifests his concern about it with remarkable astuteness. For the haunting Transit (2018) , he filmed characters with new-fangled accessories in black-and-white as they sought escape from a port in a nameless fascist state, seamlessly casting the shadow of Second World War trauma over the present day. In his new film Afire , which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, he zeroes in on narcissism in a time that demands community.