Opening this week at The Broad Theater, among the bombast of studio releases taking direct shots at your nostalgia bone, comes an inventive, charming, funny little movie that goes for similar comforts with better aim and a softer touch. A cross between the kid-venture classic “Stand By Me” and the neo-fantasy haze of “Mandy,” “Riddle of Fire” is a warm hug of a film, capturing the joys of childhood in amber and projecting them through the otherworldy lens of a fairy tale.
“O come away with me to faery castle mountain…through ‘chanted dell and mushroom shell, we’ll have ourselves an outin’…”
So begins the debut film from writer/director Weston Razooli, “Riddle of Fire”, which has traversed around the world, surprising and delighting festivalgoers at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Set in Wyoming, “Riddle of Fire” tells the story of three children on a mission to fetch a batch of speckled eggs to bake their mother a blueberry pie so they can play video games. This plot, however quaint and comforting in its simplicity, is not the source of this film’s charm and wonder. The world of “Riddle of Fire” is ours but bent toward the realm of the mythic, as if the camera lens were a funhouse mirror, shifting our most mundane reality into one of marauding rogues, sequestered princesses, and dragons off the near horizon. Shot in gorgeous 16mm Kodak film, Razooli smears the vibrant colors of the Pacific Northwest as if it were an alien landscape of untold horrors and treasures, eliciting comparison to the scuzzy epics of Roger Corman or the grand Arthurian grime of John Boorman’s “Excalibur”.
Much like “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” or “The Goonies,” where the child’s POV was given sole authorship, our lead trio of ravaging, mask-wearing, motorbike-revving miscreants are insurgents in a foreign land of wrinkled, boring adults, with only each other and their trusty paintball guns to rely on. These kids, self-described ‘Immortal Reptiles,’ are foul-mouthed and resourceful but loyal to a fault, willing to race headfirst into danger if their friend runs in first. These are the kids we all imagined ourselves to be, living the adventures we always hoped we could in a world where magic is as mundane as gummy worms and ring pops.
Perfect for adults and kids alike, “Riddle of Fire” is the kind of independent film that needs to be seen to be appreciated; a living portal into another world as savage as legend and comforting as a bedtime story by firelight.
Just don’t be surprised after watching if your kids feel the urge to go hunting in the woods for magic and fire fairies.
You’ll be glad you did.
