Riddle of Fire, 2023.
Directed by Weston Razooli.
Starring Lio Tipton, Charles Halford, Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Phoebe Ferro, Daniele Hoetmer and Lorelei Olivia Mote.
SYNOPSIS:
Three mischievous children embark on an odyssey to find the ingredients for a blueberry pie to bake for their poorly mother. Along the way they encounter poachers, a witch, a huntsman, and a fairy.
This fascinating picture’s writer and director Weston Razooli describes it as a neo-fairytale, and this helps to place the film. Beguiling, original and ultimately celebratory, the movie is a delightful romp through the imaginative worlds of childhood. Showing what is possible with a strong idea and creative focus, Riddle of Fire succeeds on a micro-budget when many projects falter with 10 times the amount of funds.
The film gets the feeling of younger years just right with the cast of child leads putting in brilliant performances with boundless energy and humour. The difficult to pigeonhole movie has a strong folklore and mythic influence that Razooli credits as an important part of his own growing up. The sense of creating your own world that exists on its own merits with your friends is put together beautifully.
Shot entirely on 16mm film, the movie focuses on Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Jodie (Skyler Peters) as they venture into the Utah forests to find the ingredients to make Hazel and Jodie’s mom a blueberry pie.
Why a pie? Well, their mum (Danielle Hoetmer) is feeling ill, and blueberry pie is the only thing that’ll make her feel better. So, off they go, out on their bikes armed with paintball guns to find exactly what they need. However, this being a fairy story imbued with magic and pagan influences, things don’t go to plan.
Along the way the friends get captured by poachers and end up deep in the wilds of the forest with no real clue as to where they are.
Also in the forest is the decidely unsavourary organisation of witchy types led by the intense Anna-Freya Hollyhock (Leo Tipton), with classic bad guy cowboy Charles (John Redrye) in tow. The group have designs on the kids, and the two gangs become involve in a hunter or be hunted type game of hide and seek.
The surreal touches of the film are charming to watch. There’s the anarchic feeling that the story could go anywhere, which it does. There is a hilarious dance competition scene where the youngest Jodie has to dance to save his friends! There is ill-advised drinking! There is toilet humour!
Overall though, Riddle of Fire is an excellently fun throw back to 1980s style kids adventure films (think The Goonies, Stand by Me) with an added folkloric element.
The music is also a huge part of this. While working on the film Razooli became introduced to the sub-genre of ‘dungeon synth’ and mixed in the computer gamey type tunes into the picture expertly well. This and the edits were obviously a lot of work. But it has been pieced together fluently and charmingly well, capturing the weird mystery of life where everything is new and different.
Sometimes you see a film where the cast obviously had a lot of fun and that doesn’t translate to the audience or to the quality of the film. That’s not the case here, though, where fun and magic are put across at every opportunity.
Fully deserving of the warm welcome it received at Cannes, Riddle of Fire has all the potential to become a cult classic. A memorable debut film by a filmmaker with a lot of promise.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
