The film itself is fairly simple, several pieces of wood gather together only to discover that they are part of a deadly and sadistic car and mouse game with one of their greatest mortal enemies, fire. Sure the narrative may be lacking in detail and specifics but watch in horror throughout the whole 1 hour and 4 minute runtime as the director, George Ford, the director behind Aquarium For Your Home and Mountain Stream, chooses to complete the entire film in one unflinching camera take. This approach harkens back to the work of Gasper Van Noe and his single unflinching take of Monica Bellucci's brutal rape scene in Irreversible. Another interesting aspect of the cinematography is the rich earthy lighting that gives off an amber glow that also echoes the lighting style of Gasper Van Noe's infamous rape scene. Was this the director's intention to film with such striking similarities, at this stage we're not entirely sure but you could be forgiven for making that assumption.
There is also the interesting choice of the soundtrack which seems to be exclusively Christmas music. It is certainly a bold choice and one can't help but wonder if director Shane Black had a hand in the scripting of the film considering the Christmas setting.
The ambiguity of the film certainly will leave the viewer with many questions: will the log to the left of screen survive considering its inability to control its current circumstances? Were the rumours of Don Cheadle's scenes being cut due to a dispute with the director true? Could we expect another shocking twist ending such as the Red Wedding scene from Game Of Thrones or is Netflix above that kind of sensationalist filmmaking? Does this fit with the Marvel Cinematic Universe already established by Daredevil and Jessica Jones and if so, will the fire come back as one of the major villains in The Defenders mini-series?
Of course Fireplace 4K hasn't been out even a week and the film already has its' imitators. Netflix applied the same template to another new show titled Oscillating Fan 4K that also using the single camera take approach and natural lighting. The one key artistic difference here is that the film works exclusively with ambient noise recorded on set. This is certainly a bold choice on the directors part to choose to push the narrative forward with only ambient noise and this should be celebrated but this doesn't make up for the fact that Oscillating Fan 4K is just a pale imitation by comparison.
Ultimately Fireplace 4K may not be to everybody's taste due to the fact that the lot is about as thin as Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, however sources do say that the script was originally completed during the writer's strike of 2007. If that is true then considering the film's high production values some of that money could have gone towards polishing some of the finer elements of the script. However only see this if you have a burning desire to watch art-house fire-porn. Will it be remembered like other great TV series such as The Wire and Breaking Bad? Only time will tell.
Fireplace 4K: Crackling Birchwood gets Three out of Five stars (or Three out of Five missed opportunities for a Don Cheadle cameo...)
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