4 months ago
What would you do? The 4th wall is tentative astatine nan champion of times successful nan films of Ondi Timoner — nan hint is successful nan title of her accumulation company, Interloper, nether which guise she has smuggled her viewers into specified hermetic communities arsenic nan relationship betwixt rival stone bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols (Dig!, 2005) and nan chaotic millennial-cult online world created by dotcom entrepreneur Josh Harris (We Live successful Public, 2009). Lately, though, Timoner has taken to turning nan camera connected herself, and if you didn’t deliberation a movie could beryllium much emotionally revealing than 2022’s Last Flight Home, astir her father’s assisted suicide, hole yourself for nan 40-minute short All nan Walls Came Down, successful which nan head and her partner are confronted pinch nan demolition of their LA location and each nan memories contained wrong it.
It’s a testament to these accelerated times that truthful overmuch has happened successful nan past 12 months that nan LA wildfires almost look for illustration ancient history. Well, possibly to nan remainder of nan world, but not to nan residents of Altadena, California, whose individual stories interweave pinch nan director’s ain and are still acold from resolved. The movie originates pinch Timoner inspecting nan aftermath, a shocking reminder of nan vagaries of occurrence damage; contempt each nan metallic objects burned successful nan occurrence — a lockbox afloat of cash, a cased people of Timoner’s only non-doc characteristic Mapplethorpe (2018), and each her awards — a clothes belonging to her begetter remains successful nan ruins of nan bath (“That’s gotta beryllium God,” says a neighbor).
In a twist of fate, Timoner was away, filming successful Europe, erstwhile nan fires collapsed out, which explains why nan head is truthful committed to documenting nan events of nan nighttime — nan confusion, nan deficiency of communication, and nan abrupt realization, for galore arsenic precocious arsenic 3.30-4am, that nan calvary wasn’t coming and it was clip to conscionable go. There’s a batch of accusation successful this film, for illustration nan truth that 19 group died and 12,500 homes were mislaid betwixt January 7-8, 2025. There’s besides a statement connected ambiance change, and nan truth that nan worst wildfires successful nan area’s history person each taken spot successful nan past 5 years. Add to each of that nan truth that nan costs for past year’s disaster has been priced astatine betwixt $76 and $131 billion, pinch nary guarantee that thing akin can’t and won’t hap again immoderate clip soon.
Above each these things, however, All nan Walls Came Down is — for illustration nan mostly of Timoner’s films, and particularly 2024’s All God’s Children — is astir community. After nan daze of her ain loss, Timoner originates to process what other has been lost, discovering conscionable really disproportionately nan fires person affected Black and aged residents, galore pinch now-worthless reverse mortgages (“It’s almost for illustration they wanted it to burn,” says 1 Altadenean). The film’s confined timeframe intends it raises much topics than it tin dream to address, but nan disfigured specter of gentrification is difficult to dispel, conscionable arsenic nan fire’s man-made origins reek of unaccountable firm malfeasance.
As nan title’s double meaning suggests, though, this isn’t an angry film, much a ceremony of nan measurement successful which truthful galore different people, from truthful galore different backgrounds, pooled what small they had to travel backmost amended and stronger alternatively than crook to defeat. It’s a salutary instruction from a sobering film, a meditation connected nonaccomplishment that dares you to put yourself successful Timoner’s spot and ideate nan unimaginable. What would you do? No 2 viewers will respond nan same, nor should they. As her rabbi sister Rachel says, “Grief has its ain timeline.”
Title: All The Walls Came Down
Distributor: Netflix
Director/screenwriter: Ondi Timoner
Running time: 39 mins
Release date: 7 January 2026
