As children, we were shielded from the outside world. Niether Barney nor the Carebears talked much about freebasing. There was no abortion clinic on Sesame Street. One of the most poignant moments in The Things We Lost in the Fire"" occurs when children are confronted with drug addiction, because in the heart of a drug addict is an adult that wishes to return to the crib or to the womb. But as any addict will tell you, achieving that goal isn't possible for long, (why else would they call it chasing?) and eventually reality hits harder than it ever has before.
The movie focuses on the death of David Duchovny's character, Brian Burke, who was the victim of a random act of violence. Brian's wife, Audrey (Halle Berry), decides during Brian's wake that it would be best for her family if Brian's drug-addict friend Jerry (Benicio del Toro) moves into the garage and helps the family cope with their loss. I know inviting your recently-deceased husband's drug-addict friend to live with you sounds like a really strange way to grieve, but it seemed logical at the time, probably because Berry's character doesn't have her wits about her for most of the movie.
Though the synopsis may make the movie sound like another independent sob-film, it really is a much more nuanced product than that. The Danish director, Susanne Bier, was once a member of Lars Von Trier's ""Dogme 95 Collective,"" a group of mostly Danish film directors that decided to abandon Hollywood conventions that, to them, seemed to suck the realism out of a picture. They established a set of rules that, while often rigid and sometimes borderline ridiculous, were revolutionary, in that they were able to create a new level of realism in the medium of motion pictures.
Although ""Things We Lost in the Fire"" is not a ""Dogme"" film, it certainly shows that Bier has not lost all of her sensibilities from that period. One of the ""Dogme"" rules is even followed (as far as I could tell) without fail - all of the shots in the film are done with a hand-held camera. The fact that this film straddles the grey area between Danish film and conventional Hollywood drama makes it a good primer for other, more ascetic Danish films.
If there is one thing that shows what a marriage between American and Danish film is capable of achieving, it is the performance of Benicio del Toro. Del Toro's performance fits perfectly into the aesthetic of the film. When he is introduced to the audience, his eyes are bloodshot, his pupils are dilated, he is unshaven, disheveled and he speaks only when spoken to in quick, monosyllabic grunts. His minimalist dialogue leaves him a lot of room to portray his character nonverbally, and the skill with which he accomplishes it is unsurpassed since David Strathairn's portrayal of Edward R. Murrow in ""Good Night and Good Luck."" His performance is phenomenal and, if not Oscar-worthy, then certainly worthy of at least nomination.
At the end of the day a film is just a film, but it can be more if it incites some degree of change in the world. David Duchovny's character was established as someone who never abandoned his friend, no matter how bad his addiction got. ""You're the last friend I got,"" Jerry said to Brian. After an addict gives up drugs, there is a hole where the drugs used to be. It could be filled with food, cigarettes or caffeine. But more than these other things, a friend can help a person through tough times when they need it. If this movie drove just one person to call their estranged addict friend, maybe then it would be more than just a film.
