Filming the Flames: Forest Fires and the Limits of Realism in Óliver Laxe’s O que arde (2020)

Óliver Laxe’s 2020 film O que arde (Fire Will Come) has been recognized in the press and the academy for its realism, especially its engagement with some of the most recognized characteristics of Italian neorealism (nonprofessional actors, on-location filming, scenes of everyday life), but also for what appears to be its maximal realist gesture: the filming of a real forest fire for the fictional film’s fire scenes. This essay interrogates this use of a real fire, considering how this choice affects the film’s overall impression of realism in two, interrelated sections: the first looks at the use of the real fire on the film’s photographic realism, while the second considers how this extratextual knowledge affects the narrative realism. What this analysis concludes is that, far from simply increasing the film’s impression of the real, the use of a real fire for these scenes only adds further complexity to the film’s fictional representation of this natural disaster. This complexity, I argue, does not undermine the film’s realist depiction of a natural disaster in rural Spain, but rather allows the film to critically explore how film and realism represent the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Ultimately, the film’s reflexive engagement with realist film offers a disquieting reflection on a global condition of contingency over which humans can no longer maintain illusions of control.