Susanne Bier is a Danish director and ‘Things we lost in the fire’ is her ‘first American language film’ (as I learned on the official website of the movie http://www.thingswelostinthefire.com/). This is the second film of hers I have seen, the first one being ‘Brothers’ – a Danish film about the profound impact of the war in Afghanistan on the life of an average soldier and his family.
This time we are confronted with another family tragedy – an almost perfect husband and father is killed when he defends a woman beaten up by her husband. We follow the scenes from the funeral, intertwined with past events referring to his friendship with the puzzling figure of Jerry. Benicio del Toro is probably the best possible match for this role – a man with the past: an attorney who became a junkie and lost control over his life.
Basically it’s quite predictable what follows. The bad guy and the devastated wife get closer to each other and we could presume they stay together after he completes his therapy and comes to terms with his life. So the story is not at all original and not that compelling maybe. But there are things you could appreciate about the film. And this concerns certainly the light and the way the film was shot – with numerous zooms of eyes and mimics of the characters, which apparently can express more than words. I liked the way the film showed some idiosyncracies we all have – Berry suffers from sleep disturbances and can only falls asleep when she is hugged in an embryonic position (that’s the name I coined..) and when her husband pulls delicately her ear lobe. Jerry will replace him eventually…
So the film is nothing special but like my friend said ’slow and easy to follow’. One could ask however if that is a merit of a film.
And I could not resist the temptation to get a picture of Benicio del Toro. His face is just cut out to play the role of a traumatised man (like in ‘21 grams’ by Inarritu!). Take a look:
