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Fire Will Come

TIFF Trailers O que arde Licencia YouTube

What do you think of this trailer?

CLASS DISCUSSION

- For two or three minutes, as your teacher tells you, form a small group with the classmates who are sitting near you and talk about this trailer.

- Choose one of you as a spokesperson and organise the ideas of your group so that this person can tell the whole class.

- Your teacher will hear all your views, via your spokespeople, in a quick class discussion. 

About this film

Read and complete

Wikipedia Fire Will Come Dominio público

AWARDS

O que arde (the title has been into English as "Fire will Come") is the first film made in the language to win an at the Cannes film festival (the most important film festival in the ). Among many other awards, it also received two Goyas, for best director of photography and for the most promising newcomer (for Benedicta Sánchez, who born in 1935!!!!)

PLOT AND THEMES

It tells the of Amador, an arsonist who has served a sentence and who now comes to his village in the Galician mountains. There he lives once more with his elderly mother and their three cows and faithful dog, and it looks as if he's beginning a tentative friendship with Elena, a vet helps when one of his cows is stuck in a stream. The movie examines Amador's character (no doubt affected by his experiences); how the villagers receive when he arrives home; life in isolated, rural communities and the disappearance of that way of life; the terrible of forest fires; the relationship between mother and son; guilt, tolerance and forgiveness; kindness to animals; and our threatened ecosystem, among many other issues.

An interesting note: the actors are non-professional (in fact, Amador and Benedicta are their real names!)

THE DIRECTOR

Óliver Laxe was in Paris in 1982 but his parents are Galician and they brought him back to live in when he was six. The village in the film is where his grandparents lived and where he spent many holidays. He went to school in A Coruña and then studied cinema in Barcelona. He has lived in Morrocco. 

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The use of music in "O que arde"

In a film review published in "Variety" the critic talks about "the exemplary use of music" in O que arde and says that "the blend of classical and popular music" is "consistently inspired". 

See if you can watch the film in class. 

Even if for whatever reason you can't watch it yet, we can talk about the music now. We will look in particular at the use of a classical piece of music and the use of a pop song in the film. 

ACTIVITY 1 

Watch the trailer at the top of this page again. What type of music is used? Pop, folk, heavy metal, opera?......

Yes, it's opera. It is called "Cum dederit" and it's from a longer work by the Italian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The translation of the words is something like this: 

"When he has given sleep

To those he loves, 

Children are an inheritance, 

A reward, a fruit of the womb". 

So if we listen to this beautiful but sombre piece of music sounds as Amador goes back to his village on the bus after leaving jail, it doesn't seem to be a very festive home-coming! However, at the same time, once we know what it means, the words show that whoever you are and whatever you have done, you are somebody's child (like Amador, who is going home to his mother Benedicta), and you are precious ("an inheritance", "a reward"). 

This piece is sung by a countertenor (men who use their vocal chords in a special way to achieve a higher tone). During the Baroque period much music (such as this piece) was written for castrati. These were singers who had been castrated to sing in high voices like women, when women were not allowed on stage. (You can read about them later on if you like). But today it is illegal to castrate small boys so that they become brilliant singers as they did then, and therefore many of these pieces are sung by countertenors. 

HERE IS THE BRILLIANT FRENCH COUNTERTENOR PHILIPPE JAROUSSKY, ONE OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD, SINGING THIS BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF MUSIC

JaRoWi1680 Jaroussky sings Vivaldi Licencia YouTube

You can do an extra activity on the fascinating world of the castrati on the next page. 

ACTIVITY 2

In another scene there is very interesting use of music again. It is a scene in which Amador is in Elena (the vet)'s car and she seems to like him, but he is very shy (and maybe hasn't had very much love in his life). She switches music on in the car (therefore, this is diegetic music!) and a song sounds out: "Suzanne", by the famous Canadian singer songwriter  Leonard Cohen (1934-2016). Elena asks if he likes the song, he answers that he doesn't understand English, and she comments: "To love music you don't need to understand the lyrics". 

Do you agree with her? Let's listen to Leonard Cohen singing "Suzanne". 

LeonardCohen Cohen sings "Suzanne" Licencia YouTube

We think that Elena is right: you can enjoy music without understanding the words! (We enjoyed Jaroussky singing even if we don't understand Latin!)  But we are luckier than Amador, we know English and so even if we don't understand everything Cohen is singing, we can read the words and translate them!

There is no doubt that understanding the lyrics makes music even more enjoyable. 

Here is the beginning of the lyrics in "Suzanne": 

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river,
you can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever.
And you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her,
then she gets you on her wavelength
and she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover.
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind,
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
ACTIVITY 
Do your best to translate these words with a friend in class. It's not easy! Remember, to translate poems and songs (and any kind of literature) you must sometimes change the literal translation a little, to make it sound better in your own language. 
Click on this feedback button for help.  

EXTRA ACTIVITY

Leonard Cohen wrote this song about a friend of his whom he loved very much but who he never had an affair with. 

So, why do you think Óliver Laxe chose this song for the scene? Remember, all your answers will be interesting. There are some ideas pressing on the button below!