“Irrlicht” in the cinema: The king who wanted to be a fireman

A heir to the throne declaiming a Greta Thunberg speech from his cell phone at dinner in front of his royal parents. A group of sexy firefighters recreating famous paintings from art history in erotic poses. A secret erection in a forest, behind the trees of which a children’s choir suddenly appears and sings a conservation song.

This new film by Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues is truly a will-o’-the-wisp. He wanders about, driven less by a story than by a desire that clings to everything, especially the fire department and the forest. And yet this is not a number revue, not a random series of oddities. For Prince Alfredo (Mauro Costa), the looming climate catastrophe is deadly serious, so much so that one evening he tells his shocked parents that he wants to start a career as a firefighter.

From the stable lateral position to the excited cardiac massage

The movement of the young prince and thus also that of the film leads from the dinner table world of the (fictitious) Portuguese royal family, staged as a sterile theater stage, into a fire station, which at the same time represents a kind of classless society – like a utopia of queer passions. Especially between Alfredo and Afonso (André Cabral) it crackles at the first handshake. It is not far to a gentle exercise in a stable lateral position and an excited chest pressure massage.

So it’s equal parts political awareness and awakening gay desire that drives the young prince to join the fire department. And it is precisely this double desire that runs through “Irrlicht” itself. Rodrigues, who celebrated his breakthrough in 2000 with “O Fantasma”, repeatedly combines the physical and the political, nowhere more explicitly than in a sex scene in the forest, in which the white prince and his black lover throwing insults at each other inspired by colonial history while they suck cocks.

“A musical fantasy” is called “Will-o’-the-wisp”, and in fact Rodrigues is happily raving about it: He lets the film begin and end in the year 2069 – King Alfredo is farting on his deathbed – the title sequence only follows after a third, again and again dialogue scenes turn into dance choreographies. Classic, pop and fado come together musically, and after just over an hour the magic is over.

So “Irrlicht” happily subverts cinematic conventions, can hardly be classified, but never comes across as bulky or exerts an artistic will. On the contrary, Rodrigues seems to be really playing with his audience, and the humor that alternates between subtle irony and rough thigh-slapping is reminiscent of Luis Buñuel – also because of the radical social criticism, which is never primly lectured and yet is meant all the more seriously.

Because “Irrlicht” weaves not only the climate catastrophe, but also the pandemic and current postcolonial discourses with a lot of fun in baroque excess into an anarchic-erotic fire brigade fantasy. Under no circumstances should this end up in a special interest niche called queer cinema, even if its godfather John Waters himself included “Irrlicht” in his year-end top ten list.

Because how Rodrigues, starting from simple visual motifs and the discourses of our time, creates a piece of cinema of just 67 minutes that is equal parts playful comedy, astute political analysis and erotic body musical should really be seen by everyone.

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