Fireworks Revisited

In this tribute to Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks (1947), our protagonist watches TV, dazzled by the screen. An avid reader of Eisenstein’s The Film Sense, they subverts the sailor’s role as an archetype of male homosexual desire, shifting it toward another object of fascination: a butch who dances sensually in front of the camera. To cross that threshold, perhaps all one needs to do is walk through a door that transports us to a dyke world, where tough lesbians riding motorcycles await on the other side.

Fireworks Revisited wears its influences openly and, by weaving them into its own fantasies, becomes a lesbian homage to what is often considered the first gay narrative film in the USA. Zalcock and Chambers move with confidence and wit, sustaining the original aura of erotic ambiguity and mystery. Ultimately, it awakens in us a simple desire: to have a lesbian whisk us onto their motorcycle, and surrender to the ride.

There was a trailer...but, it has since disappeared.