We went to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley last night for the SFIFF to see On Fire -- a French movie about jailbait 15-year-old Livia and her dangerous longing for the hot-fireman-old-enough-to-be-her-father, Jean.

A few minutes before the movie started there was a strange buzzing coming from the front of the theatre and we noticed an older man fiddling with his hearing aid. That's when we took count and realized that out of the 63 people in the audience, 31 of them had gray hair. Granted, this is Berkeley where the population probably indulges in hair-dye less than they do in neighboring cities, but what is it about this movie that brought out the salt-and-pepper crowd out in force? Were they drawn by the memories of youthful longing? Are they followers of the director Claire Simon? Do they want to see a nubile young girl straddling a big horse and bouncing up and down on it for 30 minutes? Do they just like anything French? (And you know what they say about France--the ladies wear no pants). If anyone has a theory we'd be very curious to hear it.

After the jump: did the ladies wear pants?

SFist Mihi, contributing.

The ladies all keep their pants on in this movie but it being French and all, you do get the casual glimpses of penis and boob. The movie captures the reckless self-absorption of youth and confirmed for us that the scariest people in the whole world are bored teenagers.

The director has a background in documentary film-making and spent two years capturing some truly awesome real-life footage of forest fires. She probably overindulged in her use of the amazing fire scenes because she had so much material, but it was unlike any fire scene that could be created by computer generated film-making.

The movie plays again on Wednesday, May 9 at the Kabuki.