★★★

In Carlson Young’s bold and curious debut film, The Blazing World, a young 20-something woman is wrecked with trauma. At a young age, Margaret found her twin sister drowned in a pool located at her family’s palatial estate. Nearly 20 years removed from the tragedy, Margaret (portrayed by Young as an adult) is depressed, lost, and contemplating ending her life, struggling to hold her emotions together. 

Upon learning that her parents are moving, to where she does not know, Margaret decides to go stay with them for a few days to assist in the last steps needed to wrap everything up. A contentious visit with her mother Alice (Vinessa Shaw) and alcoholic father Tom (Dermot Mulroney) only heightens her stress, leaving her to reconnect with Blake (John Karna), an old beau and some best friends from her past.

With domestic drama comprising the film’s first half, Young sets the stages for what is to come: an “Alice in Wonderland” inspired trip through a menacing black portal. The portal first appears to Margaret after her sister’s death and has haunted her dreams growing up. A man identified as The Emperor (Udo Kier) hovers around the opening, exhibiting an intense stare and waving at her to come to the portal. As Margaret falls deeper into despair the older she gets, the Emperor becomes more visible, until eventually she takes a running leap and dives directly into the darkness she thinks may potentially bring her sister back to life.

The Blazing World is a film which is inspired, in part, by Margaret Cavendish’s 1666 novel, “and other dreams,” as a title card informs us. Young has taken ideas from the 17th century work and drawn on cinematic influences from the aforementioned “Alice,” but also a healthy amount from David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, and other surreal, avant-garde filmmakers and projects who love to live in a place where viewers are constantly uncomfortable.

Young’s far-reaching ambition consumes the project at times, with a lot of (literal) smoke and mirrors masking over a more obvious and direct path which would have effectively relayed the emotions of her screenplay. However, as a testament to Young’s talents, both in front of and behind the scenes, The Blazing World is largely compelling, even if we can navigate through the dreamlike state relatively easily. Young’s fearlessness and pushing of boundaries keep us on edge and curious right along with the discoveries Margaret makes along her journey.

Kier is increasingly over-the-top, which is kind of what we want with an Udo Kier performance. And Young utilizes every penny of her budget to deploy impressive production design within the various sets that define grief and depression, acceptance and resolve. 

The Blazing World may overthink things a bit, much like its protagonist, but Young is a talented storyteller, with a limitless vision that should hopefully fall more into focus as career behind the camera evolves.

The Blazing World was screened as the Closing Night Film at the Fourth Annual North Bend Film Festival.