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Firecracker by Joe Schaefer The razzle dazzle of sickeningly huge big budget action films and the clever for clever's sake movies that boast the top spots in today's cinema houses are simply unmatched by the daringly original, vastly virginal in presentation and positively pure performances of Writer/Director Steve Balderson's tragedy on celluloid, Firecracker. Not only a film to be watched, it is a film to be experienced. The experience can be compared to marveling at the intricacies of a spider's web. This metaphor is easily adapted to an initial viewing of Firecracker and each subsequent experience thereafter. Imagine, in your heart of hearts and active mind's eye, if you will, the complexity of said web that also weaves within it, a mix of honest simplicity. If you study the web closely enough, it is devoid of color, yet within the bounds of reality and in truth it is illuminated by color under the right conditions. Upon closer inspection, characters fall victim to the web, becoming hopelessly entrapped. Writhing and seeking escape, at any cost, their beauty and moments of ugliness are exposed. Having foreknowledge and foresight of their fate, you exist at a threshold, watching, expecting, knowing. The viciousness of the creature who will disarm the bug of it's suffering and soul, who is at the moment captured within the web, creeps slowly, and you know of the coming fate and event. No matter how sickening it is, or how badly you feel, you cannot take your eyes off of it. Tortuous suffering and death occurs, and the deed is done. Somehow you have witnessed moments that you cannot decide whether to celebrate in its beauty or to mourn the losses. Either way it is done. Or is it? (insert distinctively original, moving, revealing and powerful pieces from the soundtrack here!) Suddenly, without warning and without time to catch your breath, a hand stretches across your field of vision, seemingly from nowhere, and sweeps through the web, taking with it the tiny little world, destroying it, furthering the damage already done. As the world of the bug slowly came undone, so did that of the spider and so does yours as you take part in a journey that unfolds in front as well as within. Not unlike the experience known as Firecracker. Firecracker is short of "just another film," it's an experience to be had. It's one of the eyes, the heart and the soul. It is cathartic, or a purgation of sorts, as those seemingly dry tragedies of the past once were that you had to suffer in high school or college; however, Firecracker is engrossing and smart, capturing the attention and drawing you in as your appetite for more grows with each successive scene. Be not afraid, Firecracker is very much an update on the classic tragedy, told by a story teller who has a nascent finger on the pulse of contemporary cinema. That same finger has enough creative flow in it to make your head spin, and when it stops, you get off the ride and wrangle with feelings of excitement and despair. The juxtaposition of both fight for prominence. Billed as a tragedy as the lights go down and the enchantment begins, Steve Balderson presents his story, based on actual events, that took place in his hometown of Wamego, Kansas. True to tragic drama of the past, Firecracker is classic in the sense that it sprinkles its story and fills the screen with tantalizing characters who, at times, act as tragic hero and even as the chorus. Such that would be found in tragic literature and theater, but are presented as a fascinating addition to a film with scenes and sequences that are nothing short of becoming classic film moments. A critic of Shakespeare once wrote of the bard, he "pours new wine into old bottles." Writer and Director Steve Balderson does the same as he brings the true story from a town in the mid-west to life in a multi-layered and multiple stanza poem that is rich in crisp, brilliant images. If being conscious of minute details to create dramatic effect as well as bringing new artistic life back to the screen is a crime, then Steve Balderson is guilty as charged. Much like the bard, Balderson utilizes the audience's imagination, hoping for those creepy images saved up in the deep, dark recesses of the imagination to take shape. For example, in scenes that call for graphic representation, Balderson shies away from being overt and relies on the experiences of the audience to fill in the blanks, adding to the experience and adding to the artistic mystery of Firecracker. Balderson's characters even bring to mind other moments, although not exactly, of Shakespeare. This is especially true as characters delve deeply into inescapable insanity after murderous behavior and one even tries to rub out, unsuccessfully, grotesque spots of blood like that of Lady Macbeth, to no avail. Be not afraid, this is not a period piece by the aforementioned references to Shakespeare. Although timeless in nature, this is a modern take on human values and the human condition. And comparisons be damned, this is a film that is unlike anything seen in recent memory. At the darkened heart of Firecracker is the compelling story of Jimmy, an abused coming of age teen who falls victim to his abusive older brother and who is caged emotionally by his religious zealot of a mother. Longing for escape, love and to drink the elixir of both, Jimmy finds solace and excitement in a traveling sideshow carnival. Boundless in technicolor illusion and promise, the carnival also hides a few rotting secrets and evil. Jimmy, nonetheless, finds Sandra, a woman who holds beauty in her appearance, song, and heart. She too is caged and under the fist of another, the carnival owner, Frank. It is when Jimmy's brother, David, disappears that worlds begin to collide, as well as emotions, with earth shattering and soul stirring force. Explosive sounds, images, words and performances are the ties that bind the core story into a knot, pulling tighter and tighter until they snap and pop on screen, and in the gut. The simplicity of Wamego, Kansas is shattered as Firecracker hits the ground running, literally. Creeping up Vine Street are the townspeople and neighbors while haunting music and a soul scraping wind attack the auditory senses. Images mimic the same when a body is unearthed in a shed and Police Chief Ed's (Susan Traylor) reaction to the odor is nothing less then gut wrenching. Not unlike the images and the emotional tug of war that weaves its way throughout Firecracker. The tug of war works of three levels: that upon each other, within the characters themselves and that within the viewer personally. Not a murder mystery, but a murder/cover-up that, along the way, treats the audience to an outsider's view of the human condition magnified on screen to a sickening degree. Yet at times, the audience is treated to moments that are full of care and wonder for the characters, ill-natured or not, that is unique to a film, like Firecracker. A story ripe with characters who are searching for love, drunk with power, in extreme denial, hungry for escape, consumed by guilt, bent on exploitation, Firecracker peels away the layers one by one. Starting with the true story at its core, illuminated by its richly fascinating characters who are developed by their unique look, words and actions and presented by a fantastic array of images. Academy award nominee, Karen Black, personifies all that is kind and proper for a woman devoted to her religion and rightly devoted to her sons, Jimmy (Jak Kendall) and David (Mike Patton). As Eleanor, Black commands the character and the screen making the character seem as though she is an age-old alter ego of Black's, having always existed in her psyche. Eleanor reluctantly stands by as David, sick with anger and starved for affection, abusively rules the roost, especially when it comes to younger brother Jimmy. Patton's depiction of such a character is nothing short of natural, with a hint of fear injected into the audience as one begins to wonder how easily he plays this role. Jak Kendall makes his debut as Jimmy, the reclusive, quiet-natured younger brother with dreams of escape that are intertwined with a deep-seeded anger that boils within, born of the abuse he has endured. Kendall floats in and out of each scene on strings that are attached to your heart as he pulls at them, demanding, through performance, that you find his innocence destroyed on one level, but hauntingly present on the next. He is the embodiment of the character he plays, thoroughly convincing and hauntingly real. Both Black and Patton double up as they play dual roles. Black as Sandra, the love interest of both Jimmy and David (whereas Jimmy longs to love her as the mother he wishes to have and David seeks a means of sexual gratification; perhaps a hint of the Oedipus Complex eeks its way into the tangled relationships), again, she plays, this time the carnival attraction, the character with precision and beauty. Can anyone say Academy Award? Mike Patton plays up the sinister and evil carnival owner Frank as only the mind of musician masterpiece Patton could deliver, with enough venom to kill off the audience. If Patton ended his acting career here, not only would he be at the top of his game, it would be a shame. It is interesting to note that although Patton appears in approximately 12 scenes, his presence is such that he is felt throughout the entire film. The mystic, Pearl, played by Brooke Balderson, is flawless in her delivery of the mysterious insight and powerful dialogue. In one pivotal scene she demands, "Why do you cover it up? Why do you hide?" As an audience member, one might expect her to be speaking to Police Chief Ed, or perhaps as Steve Balderson makes active participants of his audience, she is speaking to them, insisting that they look inward and search within themselves. Police Chief Ed (Susan Traylor) loves her town. Traylor portrays Ed as though she has always been in Wamego, Kansas. Traylor plays the role as though she has known these characters that play opposite her all of her life. Naturally. With true compassion and a dose of realism that is undeniable, Traylor represents all that is unique to the character and her performance, which speaks volumes of her talent. Firecracker is a myriad of wonderous and devilish characters, including oddities, who are too numerous to list, but who are nonetheless superior in their craft. Playing host to those characters is the town where the actual events took place. Firecracker's majesty and downright realism is captured in perfection by its sets/locations--that of Wamego, Kansas. Everything from the murder house to the glow of the carnival is brought to life straight from the locales that spawned the creepy story in the first place. Hollywood couldn't dream of stuff like this. Quite possibly, Steve Balderson's Firecracker will be a tough film to top for himself and in the cinema houses. Firecracker is a journey. Firecracker is an experience. Watch Firecracker as entertainment and you are in for a surprise. You will have one hell of a time, yes, but one thing is for sure, things will never be the same. See it to feel the train wreck ending, smell the smells, see the grand spectacle of the artistic aesthetics and symbolism that all feed into the Firecracker gallery of total experience that explodes simultaneously on screen and in the psyche. Psychologists will no doubt muse about the motivations, both of the characters and of Balderson himself. Steve Balderson has a flair for eliciting a pure emotional response through his visual poetry in the form of a mind boggling voyage. Thus, Firecracker. By picking at the bandaid that covers only the symptoms instead of treating the disease, he forces the audience to see themselves in a mirror disguised as images on a screen. Instead of just viewing the image in that mirror, he expects you to truly see. You've come this far, the experience has begun. ---------------------------------------- Aftertaste Magazine - 2004
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