Sundance 2021: The Blazing World

I'm left torn by writer-director-star Carlson Young's feature debut, The Blazing World. It is an extrapolation of a short she brought to Sundance in 2018 and explores a young woman's reckoning with unresolved trauma after losing her sister at a young age. The film is a fantasy-horror in the vein of Guillermo del Toro, with shades of David Lynch, Joe Dante, Terry Gilliam, and Dario Argento. After seeing her sister drown at a young age, Margaret (Carlson Young) lives estranged from her parents (Vinessa Shaw and Dermot Mulroney). She is haunted by a memory of a strange, otherworldly man (Udo Kier) who she saw usher her dead sister into a portal at the moment of her death. Margaret returns home when her parents decide to move and she plunges into a nightmare world, as a tidal wave of repressed emotions and re-traumatization washes over her, threatening to pull her under. Rediscovering the haunting, mystery man, she is tasked with stealing keys from four demons to unlock her sister from purgatory.

This is an unbelievably ambitious project, especially as a first feature film, and with the kind of budgetary constraints and pandemic restrictions she faced. Some of that shows in the special effects—a bird that runs into a window early on looks distinctly fake and the fireflies that recur as a motif look superimposed—but elsewhere, imaginative set design is convincingly otherworldly. There are sets that call to mind the cartoonish horror imagery of Joe Dante's legendary segment in The Twilight Zone Movie—“It's a Good Life”—with bright, bold primary colors. Other sections recall the candy-colored climax of Nicolas Winding Refn's most recent horror picture The Neon Demon. 

I loved how Carlson Young played off of her character's mother, played by Vinessa Shaw. Their interplay is tense and convincing and full of history that we see through the cracks in their conversations. I also loved her character's father, played by Dermot Mulroney, who lives in an unhinged, unnerving, boozy stupor, but who's actions remain grounded in understandable sadness. In addition the largely excellent sound design goes a long way toward keeping his scenes unnerving. In the hellish version of the family house, Margaret must travel through several portals to meet the alternate versions of her parents. It is a conceit that feels rote in fantasy storytelling, but inventive set design helps dispel some of the familiarity. Margaret's mom resides in a rotting house in a meadow of bright flowers. The food she serves is infested with flies and blackened beyond belief. But, the core of her mother's loneliness, which she expressed to Margaret in such a cloying way in the real world, remains. She asks for a memory from Margaret to keep her company. In another world, Margaret finds a decaying version of her own home, where her father sits in his big-backed leather chair clawing furiously at his own flesh, peeling it in layers from his face, revealing ruby-red avulsions. But, compared to the bizarre mask and colorful gown her mother wears in her world, the father's costuming feels comparatively underwhelming. It is basically normal, but with scars on his face. Udo Kier, for his part, feels as though he is of a different film. His performance is theatrical in a way that none of the other characters are. Part of this is how Udo Kier acts in all of his films. But, here, it feels a deliberate choice to play into the mystery and danger of his character. 

I wish the performances were more consistent and the pacing was a bit tighter, but I want to emphasize just how impressive The Blazing World is. It’s a lavish, fantasy-horror on a budget of pennies that accomplishes Young's inspirations, with her starring in, directing, and writing the project. I hope she continues swinging for the fences in future, because the kind of imagination and determination she demonstrates in this feature debut is genuinely impressive.