There’s a giant beating heart at the centre of this film. It stands so tall it hits the ceiling. Made of pinks and reds, feathers, and felts. Glitter dances off it when it moves. It growls and moans and though its’ eyes are black, there’s love deep within them. A unicorn-horn sits atop its’ crown. It is a dragon. One that came from the imaginations of a young girl. Her name is Blaze (Julia Savage). It is her shield, her strength, her comfort. The world where she inhabits is one of darkness but here in her bedroom, her dragon remains. It is the warmth and colour this world now lacks. Another dragon lays within the film. A smaller marble one, but just as mighty. Its scales are white and crisp. A symbol of rebirth and change. When Blaze stood across the room from the man who plunged her world and others into chaos and fear, she placed this dragon in her mouth. For a moment, she breathes fire, when no words can be found to be said.
Blaze is the startingly incredible feature debut of the Australian director Del Kathryn Barton. It follows the life of a young girl named Blaze who at the start seems perfectly ordinary. She lives at home with dad, goes to secondary school, and listens to a playlist called ‘Songs Dad Would Hate’. One day when she’s walking home from school, she witnesses a violent assault. It should come with a warning that the film does detail this assault in graphic detail, editing between the action and Blaze’s reaction to what’s unfolding. Too young to understand or know what to do, we remain with her as the horror and helplessness become starkly apparent to her young mind. The film is the story of how her imaginations protects her from the trauma of this day so is understandable that the film bluntly shows what happens but is certainly a difficult sequence to watch.
At the centre of the film is Julia Savage’s performance as Blaze. She is extraordinary. At the age of 13 she effortlessly communicates the transition from young girl, with all its naivety and wilful joy, to hardened young woman, who’s seen the reality of the grown-up world she is heading towards. All the confusion and fear and sadness are told just through subtle looks she gives, as she tries to navigate this new world that’s laced with danger. Praise should also be given to Simon Baker as Blaze’s father. A man out of his depth who also must come to terms with the fact he lost his little girl to adulthood far sooner than he thought he would. He wears a fear on his face just like Blaze. This fear of the danger lurks over the film after the incident, waying heavy on both character and screen, until you yourself long to be reunited with the respite and embrace of Blaze’s imaginary friends.
Director Del Kathryn Barton, prior to this, specialised as an artist who embraced symbolism and vivid colour in their paintings. Within the film, they bring this flare to the moments of imagined escape, combining radiantly coloured puppetry, eery stop motion sequences and recreations of the event in the style of a Grimms’ fairytale (she stumbles over the place of the attack to find the attacker shrouded in weeds, as if nature was trying to remove him). The film artfully details how there is no set response to trauma and how the worlds created to avoid the real one, can help us not only understand it, but navigate it also.
The moments of the imagined shift from the cryptic, with many containing visual flourishes that contemplate rebirth, death or how we can evolve after trauma, to the unsubtle. A sequence close to the end of the film sees Blaze marching down a road, flanked by scores of young and older women. Her story is the same as theirs, as she will defend them to the end. Whilst the message is clear, it is no less powerful and vital. Every moment feels like its’ a part of a rich tapestry, no one bit can truly be spectated from the rest and all combine to help tell a story. Here they tell a story of a young woman overcoming the horrors they witnessed and finding the power of a dragon within.
A stark vibrant brilliant debut. It navigates the worlds of suffering and rebirth, creating a world laced with imagery both vibrant and chilling. It is something truly quite special and Barton and Savage announce themselves to the world in a blaze of glory.