Born of Fire (1983)

I made myself guilty of a prejudice today when researching Born of Fire. There's a disabled actor in it, and I thought he was just marvelous. He also has a very special disability that makes him look very special. So I was checking IMDB, clicking on each and every actor there to see who it could be. But no, I couldn't find him. Maybe he was just a one time actor because of his looks, maybe he was from some distant village and Turkey and has never made a movie again... And then I realised that his character is called The Silent One, and I check the actor and realised that Nabil Shaban is the one - and the reason why I didn't believe it was him because in his resume there was roles like "Dr. Moores", "Lawyer", "George", "Ben Gunn", "Bexhill Market Hustler" and so not "freaky little guy", "weird creature in basement" and so on. Yes, it was (and still is) a serious and well known actor in the UK.... So today I faced my own prejudices.

Born of Fire is a British arthouse-movie by director Jamil Dehlavi. It was recently released by Mondo Macabro, one of the best DVD-companies in the world, who mixes fantastic arthouse like this one and Silip with crazy stuff like Lady Terminator and Virgins from Hell. Peter Firth stars as a famous flutist who suddenly get's a vision of disaster, the same visions as an astronomer (Suzan Crowley). His father once died in Turkey, and this has to do with him. He and the woman travels to Turkey to investigate, and is sucked into a strange fairy tale of islamic mythology and the end of the world itself...

The story is vague, and in the extras Nabil Shaban is explaining the story very clearly, so I recommend you to take a look at the interview with him. The details isn't important here, neither the dialogue - it's the feeling, the atmosphere, the "it" of the movie. In a way it reminded me of Argento and Fulcis more surreal work, where stuff is happening because of intuition and not classic scriptwriting. The movie has a very European feeling, which is of course natural, with beautiful houses, locations, high culture and art, religious mysticism and of course nudity... When the movie is set in the UK in beginning it could have been a more arty Italian thriller, but when the story finally takes us to Turkey there's more Jodorowsky and Arrabal. Everyone involved in front of the camera is perfect, and Peter Firth - who nowadays is a popular TV-actor, is the only person I could have seen in this role. Both innocent, and with a burden of talent and secrets.

Cinematography, direction and sets are stunning. Much is shot on location far out in the countryside in Turkey with amazing environments. It's almost like a dream, or on a different planet. I'm not that familiar with islamic mythology, but this got me more interested to read up on the subject. We get to two important figures from Islam: The Djinn, here in form av burned woman, and of course the devil, Sheitan, himself. He's a wrinkled slim man, completely nude, and with fire inside of him. Always carrying a human cranium. Nabil Shaban plays a mute twisted servant of the devil, but who not necessarily is evil.

The Mondo Macabro DVD is of course as good as it can get. This company never disappoints me. If you are into quality arthouse with genre-elements, this is the movie for you. A masterpiece, and until know, a completely unknown masterpiece for me. And I hope Nabil Shaban forgives my first thought about him.