The Blaze, 2022

Disaster movies tend to inhabit the close-but-not-too-close realm of the ‘what if?’, but Quentin Reynaud’s taut drama evokes a reality that is painfully immediate, as the world combusts around us. Alex Lutz (recently seen as the son in Gaspar Noé’s Vortex) plays a man determined to escape with his elderly father (the ineffable André Dussollier) from a wildfire that is rapidly approaching their forested area of southern France. The pair know all the local roads, and the secret detours, but when they are caught in a dead end, they seem to be running out of possible exits. At once road movie, claustrophobic jeopardy thriller and portrait of a prickly but tender father-son relationship, this finely acted and executed film expertly lays on the heat.