But there’s something fundamentally unconvincing about Barton’s entire premise. We understand why she might flip out when she sees Jake from the school bus window, for example. As she sits there on the stand, Blaze’s reality ruptures even more: She bites down on her plastic dragon toy and imagines herself torching the rapist with a mouthful of fire.īlaze is overwhelmed by the situation. During an unfair court hearing, Blaze is cross-examined by the assailant’s attorney and forced to answer uncomfortable questions about sex. At home, Blaze uses the internet to research Hannah, trying to construct a mental picture of the victim, who will soon feature in her hallucinations.
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This is a #MeToo-era movie if ever there was one, using the kind of cultural conversations the movement has made possible to explore the idea that violence perpetrated against one woman amounts to violence against all. After Luke asks his daughter what’s wrong, the film cuts directly to the police station, where the reluctant young witness must look at photos of the crime scene and describe what she saw to authorities. Barton is big on symbols but not on subtlety, making her points with a heavy hand.
This makes him an ideal parent when he admits as much - millennial movies’ new favorite theme, wherein parents apologize to the more enlightened generation that follows. Luke desperately wants to help, but doesn’t always know how. Her father, Luke (Simon Baker), is familiar with the way Blaze’s mind works, but is attentive enough to recognize that something must have happened to disturb his daughter.
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Blaze has a way of retreating into her head, a carnival-like space where she can run free on the beach and scream the feelings she can’t put into words. Barton dedicates the rest of the film to this question, blending scenes of clumsily written reality - wherein she and co-writer Huna Amweero share statistics on femicide and abuse - with welcome interludes of sideshow escapism. How is a child supposed to make sense of what just happened? It’s upsetting even to adult eyes (despite its preteen protagonist, “Blaze” is intended for grown-up audiences). Blaze stands petrified around the corner as the violent scene escalates, involuntarily sharing in the trauma of this brutal, fatal assault. “But all that eye contact … what was that?” he says, pulling at Hannah’s clothes and blocking her escape. Blaze is wearing headphones and can’t distinguish what’s being said, but we can: The woman, Hannah (Yael Stone), makes clear that whatever may have happened before between her and the tall, pushy gentleman, Jake (Josh Lawson), she’s not interested in crossing that line again. Listening to music and minding her business, Blaze turns down an alley where a couple are arguing.
These creatures keep Blaze company on a daily basis, but aren’t necessarily equipped to help her cope with the shock she gets on her way home from school. Meanwhile, a curio cabinet in the corner of her bedroom houses a small army of ceramic figurines - kissing kangaroos and kitschy salt and pepper shakers - which also come to life for her on command. Represented by a sparkly puppet with emerald green eyes, a stuffed-piñata head and tinkling feather wings, Blaze’s personal dragon looks like something that might ride atop a Mardi Gras float. Taylor Swift Reveals the Secret Easter Eggs and Themes Inside 'All Too Well: The Short Film' 'Space Oddity' Review: A Trip to Mars and a Sweet Romance Anchor This All-Too-Sweet Drama Tribeca Title 'A Story of Bones' Boarded by Sales Company Cinephil (EXCLUSIVE) The artwork is colorful but unclear, though it’s safe to assume that in the intervening years, these images have become the basis of Blaze’s unique emotional support system.
In the film’s prologue, we meet Blaze as a toddler, seated before a wall of Barton’s psychedelic paintings: five panels depicting nude goddesses entwined with radiant birdlike creatures. Produced by Australian elevated-horror shingle Causeway Films (“The Babadook”), “Blaze” marks the feature directing debut of a distinctive new voice, and though there’s a certain woodenness to the narrative, the visuals - glitter dreams of a 10-foot fuchsia dragon - radiate with originality. But Blaze is no ordinary girl, and fine artist-turned-filmmaker Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze” reflects that, using a dazzling combination of digital and practical effects to represent the interior world of a survivor who has long relied on make-believe to cope with an overwhelming world.
No 12-year-old should have to confront the violent act Blaze (Julia Savage) witnesses seven minutes into the imaginative empowerment story that bears her name.
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