‘Blaze’ Review: A Pre-Teen #MeToo Survivor Leans on Her Magic Dragon

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticNo 12-year-old should have to confront the violent act Blaze (Julia Savage) witnesses seven minutes into the imaginative empowerment story that bears her name.

But Blaze is no ordinary girl, and fine artist-turned-filmmaker Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze” reflects that, using a dazzling combination of digital and practical effects to represent the interior world of a survivor who has long relied on make-believe to cope with an overwhelming world.Produced by Australian elevated-horror shingle Causeway Films (“The Babadook”), “Blaze” marks the feature directing debut of a distinctive new voice, and though there’s a certain woodenness to the narrative, the visuals — glitter dreams of a 10-foot fuchsia dragon — radiate with originality.

In the film’s prologue, we meet Blaze as a toddler, seated before a wall of Barton’s psychedelic paintings: five panels depicting naked female goddesses entwined with radiant bird-like creatures.

The artwork is colorful but unclear, though it’s safe to assume that in the intervening years, these images have become the basis of Blaze’s unique emotional support system.