REVIEW: ‘All The Fires’ Illuminates The Essentiality Of Proximity To Queerness

Everybody deserves to have proximity to queerness. It’s not only essential for normalization but literally life-saving for people who don’t yet know they are queer themselves or who may have an inkling but no community among which to foster an identity. Written and directed by Mauricio Calderón Rico, All the Fires (Todos los Incedios) features a teenager, Bruno (Sebastian Rojano), whose increasing proximity to queerness helps him on his own journey to understanding his sexuality.

Of course, none of that journey is apparent to Bruno, or the audience, until it has already transpired. Uncommon intimacy with his male best friend, little glances at women making out in a club, and quick Google searches for terms he’s never heard of quietly delineate Bruno’s sweet, satisfying trajectory. Alongside Bruno, audiences experience the joys and fears of discovering a queerness that has always been within and around Bruno, even if he didn’t have the words yet to describe it, understand it, or appreciate it.

Bruno’s a typical teenager, eager to be mad at his mom at all times, especially when her seemingly new boyfriend is around. Since his dad died two years ago, he’s struggled in the parental relationship department. He turns to setting things on fire and posting videos to YouTube as an outlet for his angst. It’s through this hobby that he’s connected with Dani (Natalia Quiroz), a teen from another city who shares his interest in fires and angst. After a particularly bad blow-up with his mom and an embarrassing encounter with his friend, Bruno runs away to find and meet Dani. Little does he know her world will change him forever.

Queerness isn’t quite painfully obvious in All the Fires. Plenty of the signs of potential outward expressions of queerness in characters could be easily shrugged off as quirks or punk aesthetics rather than explicitly queer. It’s nice to inhabit a world where queerness is just part of the tapestry for most of the movie and not a blinking rainbow-colored light. The signs, of course, become more opaque as the movie progresses, but for most of its runtime, that really isn’t the case.

This helps buoy the slow awakening Bruno makes from a world of naivete to his own sexuality and his obliviousness to the queerness saturated around him. You can feel the gears turning in Bruno’s head along the way, but it’s also a soft, trauma-free movement from one phase of his life into a new, fuller one.

The other interesting dynamic at play in All the Fires is between Bruno and his own parents, Bruno and Dani’s parents, and Dani and her own parents. Bruno has a clear resentment for his mom and her boyfriend at the movie’s onset. It’s not entirely clear why, but it’s an obvious enough trope and relatable enough experience, especially in the wake of his father’s death, that its lack of build-up isn’t concerning. But as soon as Bruno meets Dani’s parents, he’s in love with them. They seem like the kindest, most understanding people in the world to him. They ask no questions when he shows up, they just let him into their home, feed him, respect him, and treat him nearly like their own son. There’s a precious moment in the kitchen between Bruno and Dani’s mother as she helps him learn to prepare breakfast.

Of course, Dani couldn’t possibly relate to Bruno’s experience of her own parents any less. Her reasons are well-examined towards the film’s conclusion and are entirely justified. It’s only surface level, but these different perspectives on her parents offer an example of how the tool of one person’s liberation can just as well be the cause of somebody else’s oppression. Bruno needed to find acceptance from parent figures to achieve his own growth, but those same parents are Dani’s biggest barrier. All the Fires doesn’t examine Dani’s side of that paradigm enough, but it’s a hard truth that’s lingered ever since watching it.

The issue with All the Fires is that for as uplifting as its main progression is and as thought-provoking as its secondary plot is, it’s a visually lackluster affair. A couple of very pretty scenes outside can’t suspend this morbidly dimly-lit film on their own. Not even the scenes of various fires feel like they capture enough of the feelings that Bruno and Dani derive from their pyromania. Most of them burn out too quickly, or there are weird jumps between day and night. One fire towards the end serves as an interesting metaphor, maybe on a few levels, but it’s still not especially interesting visually.

All the Fires is not as visually captivating as you’d hope a movie about fires to be. But its perspective on the resentment and lionization of parents is thought-provoking and its gentle journey through the benefits of one teen’s increasing proximity to queerness is quite enthralling.

All the Fires made its U.S. premiere at NewFest 2023.