Blaze (2022 film)

Blaze is a 2022 Australian drama film co-written and directed by Del Kathryn Barton and produced by Causeway Films. The film premiered in New York in the International Narrative Competition at the 2022 Tribeca Festival and was released in a limited theatrical release in Australia on August 27, 2022 and in the US in January 2023. The film was met with critical acclaim, with praise for the performance of its 13-year-old lead Julia Savage.

Plot
Blaze, a young teenager, is the sole witness to a shocking crime. Struggling to make sense of what she saw, she unleashes the wrath of her imaginary dragon.

Cast

 * Julia Savage as Blaze
 * Simon Baker as Luke
 * Yael Stone as Hannah
 * Josh Lawson as Jake

Reception
The film review website Metacritic lists 5 critics and assessed 5 reviews as positive. It give a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, which it said indicated "Universal acclaim". Rotten Tomatoes lists 17 critics with 15 assessed as fresh and two as rotten. It gave the film a score of 88%.

Peter Debruge of Variety writes 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." Luke Buckmaster of The Guardian gave it 4 stars, writing "The result is a hot, sticky, trippy fusion of wild style and painfully genuine emotion, with plenty of moments that take your breath away." The Sydney Morning Herald's Sandra Hall gives it a 3 1/2 star review concluding "It's a bold piece of filmmaking. Barton has tried to take us inside the mind of a traumatised sub-teen by way of charting her changing relationship with a fantasy that has kept her company since childhood. She has used the aesthetic sensibility that shapes her painting to bring this about, but it's only the power and the subtlety of Savage's performance that saves the narrative from being swamped by the intricacies of the production design."

Awards

 * Art Film Fest 2023
 * Blue Angel Award for Best Performance by a Female Actress - Julia Savage
 * 12th AACTA Awards
 * Best Lead Actress - Julia Savage - nominated
 * Best Supporting Actress - Yael Stone - nominated
 * Best Supporting Actor - Simon Baker - nominated
 * Best Editing - Dany Cooper - nominated
 * Best Cinematography - Jeremy Rouse - nominated