How the Fire Fell directed by Edward Davee is gorgeously-hewn and magnificent, the shimmering love-child of bergman, malick, tarkovsky, lynch. It's filled with dread, darkness, and rising tension all set against lyric bucolic backdrops that suggest say a innocent rural narrative but it only takes a few minutes into the film to realize this is something else. A lurking sense of danger and dis-ease fills every frame of the film - dead flies against a bevelled windowpane; slightly manic preaching off-camera barely audible over the roar of a river; bodies writhing and ululating in the darkness, lit only by the flames of a bonfire. HTTF is a stunner on its face just for the jawdrop photography of Scott Ballard and to equal degree the force of Joe Haege's performance as increasingly-unhinged preacher/charlatan E. Creffield but when you take into consideration the fact that HTFF is a black-and-white, period film shot on super-16 for 50 grand that manages to side-step the potential landmine clichés in the historical narrative itself and, further that it's a debut feature *about* something (ie not the mumblecore malaise of twentysomethings on bicyles in brooklyn or whatever), then you have to stand back and realize you are maybe seeing something potent and new, some emergent and profound talent at work. Keep your eye on Davee and seek out this film.
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