It’s rather fitting that the first professional movie I’ve seen seemingly set in Saskatchewan is about people trying to get out of Saskatchewan.
Firecrackers is the feature debut of writer-director Jasmin Mozaffari, based on her own short film from years before. And recently it won her the Best Director Award at this years’ Canadian Screen Awards (the film also took home Best Editing), and after watching it it’s pretty clear why. Mozaffari has both a sublime sense of cinema and a determination to use the form to say something important. It would be foolish not to expect greater things from this young filmmaker.
This story is centred around two girls in a rural small town, Lou (Michaela Kurimsky) and Chantal (Karena Evans), who are desperate to get out of its repressive, suffocating atmosphere, with big plans to travel as far as New York with the money they’ve earned working at a local motel. But their hopes are derailed by a series of unforeseen circumstances, not least of which is the fallout from Chantal’s boyfriend sexually assaulting her the night before their due departure. Their response to this and the further constricting influence of the town makes it even harder for the girls to escape.
This movie reminds me a lot of The Florida Project. Both films are set in crummy environments following heavily realistic people longing for a form of freedom from a mundane life, and shot with plenty of ambience, natural lighting, and frenzied editing. However the mood of Firecrackers is a lot more disorienting and foreboding, you really get the sense of the girls’ entrapment. There’s a feeling of claustrophobia throughout the movie, the camera often following the characters closely and in long takes in contrast to establishing shots or ruminating moments against a landscape or the open sky, representing their freedom within repeatedly unattainable reach. Mozaffari’s script goes out of its way not to specify the town’s name, only its smothering effect, but both its geography and its people resemble numerous small communities far from major centres across Canada, particularly on the prairies. Living in Saskatchewan I recognize plenty of its visual and social characteristics and immensely sympathize with the need to get away from them.
Lou and Chantal also happen to occupy that goldilocks zone of being both believably naive, rebellious, and irresponsible, while also relatable, sharp, and admirably strong-willed. The idea of driving all the way to New York without much a plan is extremely short-sighted, but you completely understand their determination to chase even an infeasible dream. While they may seem like ignorant teenagers sometimes, it’s easy to be on their side when just about everyone else in town is so unsympathetic. The girls are each going through rough times and make impulsive and unwise choices, but it’s completely understandable why. Kurimsky, whose point of view the story is told from, plays Lou with an ambivalent demeanour but a fiery passion; and Evans conveys Chantal’s confusion, fear, and impatience following her trauma with absolute conviction.
But this is all without touching much on the reason the girls want to escape; and it’s not merely to follow their dreams or experience the more exciting pace of a city, but because the backwards environment of the rural town they’ve been living in is demonstrably oppressive to them personally. Lou and Chantal are free spirits who are unfortunate to be surrounded by a suppressive and harmful patriarchy. Yes, Firecrackers is nothing less than a emphatic condemnation of the toxic masculinity and outright misogyny that easily festers in places as removed and isolated as country towns. Each of the girls’ attempts to get out are waylaid or made more difficult by the men in their lives. First by Chantal’s monstrous boyfriend (Dylan Mask) feeling entitled to her body before she leaves town, followed by a seemingly kind boy (Scott Cleland), whose vehicle they were reliant on, betraying them out of peer pressure, and eventually a couple drifters asserting a violently symbolic kind of dominance in the movie’s tensest and most uncomfortable scene. We see the men in this movie try to ignore Lou and Chantal or blame them for sexual inadequacy, but Mozaffari makes sure to also show how widespread and systemic this behaviour is, particularly in Lou’s abrasive evangelical mother (Tamara LeClair) and her relationship with the much younger and timid Johnny (David Kingston). Not only do they refuse to understand Lou and disrespect her, but they stifle her younger brother Jesse (Callum Thompson) who likes to wear make-up and dance to traditionally non-masculine music. Their attempts to indoctrinate him both into religion and extreme male heteronormative activities such as shooting is perhaps the films’ most tragic plot thread.
Firecrackers is a movie that asks us to consider cultural misogyny in a very pointed and brutal way. It’s not just about saying sexual assault is bad, it assumes we already understand that; it’s about breaking down the toxic behaviours and ideas that allow sexual assault, and are in and of themselves exceedingly harmful. Jasmin Mozaffari made a movie that’s lush and rich, neo-realist in design without being neo-realist in construct, vehemently impactful, and intellectually resonant with a firm and passionate message behind it. No wonder she won Best Director.
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