Natalie D.C.
The brain-child and directorial debut of Australian artist and filmmaker Del Kathryn Barton, Blaze premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and tells the heart-wrenching story of Blaze, a 12-year-old girl (played by Julia Savage), who, after witnessing a violent crime, processes her trauma by summoning an imaginary dragon named Zephy. Part coming-of-age drama, part crime-thriller, and part fantasy, Blaze tugs at its viewers’ heartstrings with a charming protagonist and beautiful visuals, all the while grappling with extremely dark subject matter and themes, including rape, murder, mental health, and the ways people—particularly children—cope with trauma.
The film opens like a classic coming-of-age tale, with a tween girl listening to music in her too-big headphones, eating ice-cream, and walking home amidst the nature of suburbia (in this case, Paddington, Australia). Immediately, there is a disruption of this idyllic image of childhood: a woman (played by Orange is the New Black’s Yael Stone) and a man (played by Josh Lawson) are having an argument in the alleyway Blaze is headed back home through.
The next few minutes of the film are shot like a horror flick (save for the music, which, eerily, is still as upbeat as ever) while the man–who we later learn is named Jake—rapes and murders the woman—who we later learn is named Hannah. While the scene isn’t overly graphic, it also doesn’t shy away from the brutal reality that Blaze, hidden from view, is witnessing as melted ice-cream pools beneath her feet, a brutal reality that happens, on average, once every week in Australia.
These elements of horror remain long after this pivotal scene. At home, after Blaze’s single father, Luke (played by The Devil Wears Prada’s Simon Baker), discovers Blaze in a catatonic state, she is taken to the police station where she is fingerprinted, swabbed for DNA, and forensically examined by a doctor. These scenes have a cold, sterile look to them–in contrast to the bright, warm colors of the film’s opening—which cause their contents to seem invasive, horrific, and almost as traumatizing as Blaze’s witnessing of the crime itself.
Time skips forward and Blaze is interviewed by a no-nonsense police psychologist who asks Blaze to describe how she’s feeling. Our young protagonist—who, up until this point has been coping with emotions of anger, depression, and shame–simply responds, “Dragon.” It is here where the film’s central message is best outlined: feelings too big for words are captured by the visual splendor that is Blaze’s imagination. Her dragon (who we come to know throughout the film as Zephy) is not only grand in size, but in theatrics as well. She is a glittery, colorful, and feathery puppet with a deep voice and a ferocious presence.
As Blaze deals with sterile hospitals, a well-meaning but clueless father, and an unforgiving criminal justice system in the real world, her imaginary world boldly captures all that she is thinking and feeling. These fantastical visuals are not just limited to scenes with Zephy, however. There are several colorful, glittery scenes that use a combination of wacky editing, adorable stop-motion animation, and vivid cinematography. Blaze plays with the figurines in her room, transforming them into her “army,” Blaze revisiting the scene of the crime and Hannah’s dead body immortalized in jewels and glitter.
In one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the film, a stop-motion Blaze swallows the glowing medication she is prescribed, the fragile figure—and her imagination—slowly growing weaker. This is another prime theme of the film: the impacts of medication on a young girl’s mind and personality. While the film doesn’t demonize medication entirely, it also doesn’t shy away from its negative effects. In one scene, after Blaze—in a fit of rage and re-opened trauma upon seeing Jake walk free outside Blaze’s bus—publicly harms herself, she asks her doctor, upon overhearing his suggestion to her father that she be medicated, “Will the medicine kill my dragon?” It is here where Blaze’s imagination and her recovery process collide as we see Zephy grow weaker and weaker the longer Blaze takes her medication.
It is also worth discussing the unorthodox role of music in the film. Usually, music is used to heighten emotions, especially during high-tension scenes that are pivotal to the plot. In any other film, the courtroom or the hospital would be the first place where background music is applied in order to grab the audience’s attention. In Blaze, however, scenes in these settings are eerily quiet, showcasing Blaze’s disconnection to the real world for the majority of the film (and, perhaps, demonstrating how unimportant these scenes are in the face of Blaze’s solo scenes of emotional growth). It is only in scenes where Blaze is truly alone with her thoughts—and emotions—that the music swells and viewers feel connected to the young protagonist’s mental health journey.
Music not only represents Blaze’s emotional journey, but it also acts as a gateway to her imagination. In one scene, Blaze dances around her room, blasting music, while transforming her figurines into an “army” that hang from the ceiling (using wax that she melts with a lighter, much to the later dismay of her worried father). Out of context, this scene doesn’t make much logical sense. However, the presence of music in this scene lets the viewer know that Blaze is in another world right now–her imagination–and that creating this “army” is a way to cope with her trauma, allowing her to craft a series of entities (including Zephy) who will protect her from the cruelty of reality.
While Blaze’s emotional and mental well-being take center-stage in the film, her involvement with the criminal case looms. After a disastrous committal hearing—where Blaze spits fire at Jake after his lawyer questions what she saw—Blaze is labelled an unreliable witness and temporarily dismissed from the case. Still, Blaze scrolls on social media, obsessing over Hannah, her kids, and her rapist-murderer, Jake. With the help of a friend, Blaze confronts Jake with a confident “I know what I saw,” but is once again dismissed.
The majority of the film is interspersed with scenes from Blaze’s feverish imagination (especially after she stops taking her meds) and her shame-riddled reality. Eventually, Luke discovers that his daughter has been hiding her meds in the figurines she hangs from her room’s ceiling and cleans out her room, effectively taking away her “army” and, with them, any form of expression she’s been able to have in the past few months. In a fit of rage, Blaze backs her father’s car out of their garage, causing damage to their house as well as to her and her father’s already-strained relationship. She is admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she meets the foil to her previous psychiatrist, a woman with tattoos, a lazy eye, and a big smile.
Here, the film takes a turn and, after her new psychiatrist earnestly listens and honestly responds to Blaze’s questions about her situation, she learns to cope with her complex emotions in a healthy manner. After leaving the hospital, she meets up with one of Hannah’s kids, a teenager named Micah (played by Heartbreak High’s Will McDonald), and gives him her white dragon figurine introduced towards the beginning of the film. The white dragon, Blaze informs her new psychiatrist, is a symbol of “rebirth,” representing not only Blaze’s transformed mental state after the traumatic event of Hannah’s rape and murder, but also the rebirths of those similarly impacted, including Micah.
Zephy is also transformed by the end of the film. After Blaze returns from the hospital and revives her weakened dragon, Zephy turns into a giant white dragon, which Blaze (in a surprisingly gory scene) slays, enters, and becomes. While this is a shocking act, it signifies Blaze’s mental and emotional metamorphosis as she turns thirteen, gets her first period, and decides to testify against Jake from the comfort of her room with the support of her father beside her.
Blaze expertly blends genres to weave a tale of trauma, resilience, and hope after a girl is forever altered by an unforgivable act. Her confidence in her testimony and unshakeable sense of justice fuels her actions throughout the film. This is only heightened by the bold surreality of her imagination, which is depicted via the kaleidoscopic visions of artist, director, and co-writer Del Kathryn Barton. This film also features a stand-out performance from child-star Julia Savage, who won the 2023 Art Film Fest’s Blue Angel Award for Best Performance by a Female Actress and was nominated for Best Lead Actress in the 12th AACTA Awards.
Overall, Blaze is a bold directorial debut from Australian visionary Del Kathryn Barton that succeeds in balancing extremely dark subject matters and themes with colorful and whimsical visuals. While this film might not be for fans of courtroom dramas or high fantasies, it uses key elements from these disparate genres to craft a touching and unique coming-of-age story that deserves to be seen, especially in a world that still suppresses the voices of rape and sexual assault survivors.
