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Firecracker By Trevor Erb When Steve Balderson and I crossed paths nearly a year ago and began discussing the ins and outs of his film "Firecracker," I was all too excited just to hear about his experiences working with Mike Patton. However, our conversations quickly took to a sharp focus on the film and the events that initially inspired its creation. Yet, when I learned that I would eventually get to see the movie, pre-release, even a year's worth of conversations with Balderson himself couldn't begin to prepare me for the unexplained feelings brought on by nearly every scene in "Firecracker." In the small town of Wamego, Kansas a murder has just thrown the town flat on its face, but in the events that took place beforehand, viewers will see that the murder is more or less a happy ending to a tragic story. As the film begins, a seemingly uneventful town is brought to life by children and adults running through the streets, and down the alley that lies behind the White family's tool shed, where David White's body is being uncovered. A closer inspection of the White family unfolds as the movie progresses and we find that the "Leave it to Beaver" stereotype of 1950-60's culture couldn't be further from the truth. David White (Mike Patton) pulls double duty around the White household acting as a son and often times a father figure, a term I use loosely. Eleanor White (Karen Black) is a disillusioned religious fanatic that spends most of her time praying, in order to get away from the harsh reality of her son David's drinking and anger problems. All the while, the younger son Jimmy (Jak Kendall) is merely an unfortunate victim to David's binges and his mother's neglect. Luckily enough for Jimmy, the carnival is in town, and helps to provide some escape from his older brother, if only for a short while. During a visit to the carnival Jimmy manages to catch a brief glimpse of Sandra (Karen Black), the main attraction of the girly show, and we soon find that Sandra too, is trapped in an abusive relationship of the sadistic and mental sort by her lover and the carnival owner, Frank (Mike Patton). The story gets deeper and a connection is made with the dual roles that Mike Patton plays, for the carnival has been to town before and viewers will soon gather that David and Sandra had a relationship that couldn't possibly end well given the parties involved. With the intensity of a 40-car pileup, the raw emotion tossed at you from every side is only further perpetuated by intense color saturation, chilling performances from Jak Kendall, Mike Patton, Brooke Balderson, and Karen Black, and that's when the whiplash sets in. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of the film is Balderson's newfound technique of extreme color saturation. The only previous example I can offer is the extreme color differences of "Pleasantville" when the color begins to enter into the black/white community. "Firecracker" not only pits carefully plotted color amidst certain black and white scenes, but also uses the saturation technique in scenes already riddled with color. The resulting visuals are so extremely vibrant that they will remain in your head for weeks and months to come. If you've ever watched a movie and had a problem with remembering what happens in between the begging, middle, and end, the colors in "Firecracker" will leave you with a memory that's perfect in every way. When recalling scenes, it won't just be left to a certain performance necessarily, but rather the burning redness of Sandra's cape versus the lush, green grass that cools your retinas as she flees for her life in a particular scene. As a matter of fact, the color correction techniques used in "Firecracker" were groundbreaking enough to surpass the original Technicolor aspects and in turn Balderson's production company used their own Viviscope schematics. Colors aside, the acting in "Firecracker" is nothing short of stunning. Perhaps the most breathtaking is Mike Patton's portrayal of David. Fans of Patton will be shocked by David's blonde hair, clean shave, and country drawl, but they'll recognize that the singer actually got to put his vocal talents to work. During a heated dinner table discussion between David and Jimmy, Patton's lines roar and illicit chills that most of today's horror movies can't even bring about. Karen Black's portrayals of Sandra and Eleanor are so far removed from each other that at times, I began to forget that she was playing the dual roles. Her fanaticism as Eleanor would almost be comical at times, if it wasn't painstakingly clear that there are actually people like that in this world. It's Jak Kendall's character Jimmy that really struck a chord with me though. His portrayal of a young man that strived to find happiness amidst a sea of chaos and situations that would make a grown man cry is a constant reminder of how fortunate many of us are, and how much the fortunate take for granted. Given that the film is based on actual events, shooting the film on location in Wamego, Kansas surely helped to bring about the stirring performances in each actor, and as I sat in a house only seconds away from where David's body was found I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that came over me. Unfortunately, I doubt very many people will get to experience the film as I did, but you can be sure that when it lands in theaters, you'll want to cancel your plans after the film, and go home and sit and try to regain any form of feeling you had when you first entered the theater. The feeling is best described as "numb." It's not that you won't feel anything, but so many emotions will wash over you, that you won't know what to feel or what to say, but you'll know that there's something missing, and you might not find it for days or weeks later. "Firecracker" spoke volumes to me about how I treat others, and the feeling I came home with was that I needed to become a better person, and I have since focused my energy on that goal, but the film will take a different toll on everyone The true meaning of "Firecracker" doesn't just lie in the plot, and it doesn't reveal itself in the end, it's a film that leaves the discovery of the meaning to the viewer. Simply put, "Firecracker" is without a doubt, the new standard in filmmaking, feeling, and human emotion.
---------------------------------------- DecoyMusic.com - 2004
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