Cruel Summer: In Jasmin Mozaffari’s Firecrackers, a fun day at the beach takes a dark turn.
By Chris Deacon (DGC Ontario Director Member)
In Firecrackers, Jasmin Mozaffari’s explosive 2018 directing debut, best friends Lou (Michaela Kurimsky) and Chantel (Karena Evans) are desperate to escape their toxic small town, rife with poverty, abuse and the ever-present threat of male violence.
In one of the film’s opening sequences, Lou and Chantel head to the beach with a group of guy friends. What starts as a sundrenched montage of Kodak moments takes a threatening turn when Chantel’s ex-boyfriend, Kyle (Dylan Mask), shows up uninvited.
“I wanted to show this sunny, fun experience but have a dark thread underneath it— this kind of threatening vibe that runs through the entire scene, even though they’re drinking and dancing and having fun,” says Mozaffari, who was inspired by the work of Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank).
“There’s a lot of darkness in the coming-of-age experience. A lot of stories about women —and teenage girls especially— really romanticize their experience, and I didn’t relate to that.”
In this new series, we give you a rare glimpse into the Director’s mind as they analyze a pivotal scene and share the motivation behind their creative choices.
And now, DGC Ontario Director Jasmin Mozaffari, in her own words:
1. “This is the first shot —a smash cut to the beach scene. I wanted it to feel immediately gross. I was sure any woman who saw this image would immediately feel sick, and that was certainly the point. It’s this all-too-familiar feeling of playfulness going one step too far. He licks her face like a dog and pins her hands down forcefully. I wanted his tongue to be stained blue as if he had just eaten a popsicle (we used food colour). The sweaty hair, sand, dirt, and blue tongue combine this feeling of teenage debauchery while trying to underscore this idea of rape culture that sometimes exists in hetero-teenage interactions. You’re also hit with a very deep cutting synth from composer Casey MQ right at this moment. I wanted this juxtaposition between this hot, bright summer day and a very dark score. The score for the top of this scene is almost a cacophony of sounds – experimental, booming – especially in a theatre. My references were Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Ital Tek, among others.”
2. “The camera work for this scene (and most scenes in the film) is very loose and handheld. Our cinematographer was the brilliant Catherine Lutes, who used an Easyrig and operated the whole time. The inventor of the Easyrig actually sent her the vest from Sweden, as many vests were only made for larger male bodies at the time. She was chasing these kids all day on the beach in what was probably 35-degree heat. The camerawork always reflected the energy of the moment. It was meant to be visceral and alive, oscillating between our observations of the characters and Lou’s POV. Catherine actually developed a special LUT specifically for the film that was able to handle the bright light without the whites ever blowing out. This is because I wanted the beginning of the film to feel harshly bright and get darker and moodier as the film went on and as the girls’ freedom faded away.”
3. “Now, we’ve moved out of the score and into diegetic music. We used a lot of local artists like Tasha the Amazon for diegetic music. Here Lou and Chantal are having fun with two of the boys. School is done, and freedom is on the horizon. I established in an earlier scene that Josh has a major crush on Chantal, and here we see that she’s reciprocating it a bit (or maybe just having fun). Scott, who played Josh, was only 14 at the time, so his mom was off-camera watching closely! Karena Evans, who played Chantal, also consulted a choreographer for this lapdance scene. I wanted to make sure that she was never filmed from the male gaze at this moment but always framed in a way that empowered her.”
4. “Here’s where the vibe changes. Off-camera, you hear Chantal’s ex yelling in the distance. His arrival is bad news – which we only deduce through reaction shots. This specific look that girls give to each other carries with it a thousand words. This scene is guided so much by reaction shots, especially from Lou, who lets us know how to feel by the look in her eyes.”
5. “Here is Chantal reacting to Kyle’s uninvited arrival. Every look Karena gave carried with it so much weight. I don’t care for a lot of exposition – I only really care about emotions on people’s faces. Before we shot I had spent nearly a year with Karena and Michaela working on their characters. I used improv sessions to create history between the characters in scenarios that were never to be seen on screen. Karena and Dylan (who plays Kyle) had some private improv sessions with me where we built the history of their troubled ‘romantic’ relationship. I find this type of preparation creates very lived-in performances as the actors have actually experienced a history for real. Especially with actors who are non-actors or inexperienced, as it allows them to call upon real memories with another character, allowing for every look, word, and action to carry with it the weight of the past.”
6. “Once Kyle arrives with his buddy, he immediately becomes possessive of Chantal. He’s off-put and jealous that she dared to dance up on Josh, and he tries to make them both feel bad about it. Chantal takes matters into her own hands here and tells him she can do whatever she wants with whoever she pleases. This scene, like much of the film, is about power dynamics playing out under patriarchy. At this point in the scene, Kyle seems like a goof. Lou, Chantal, and Josh are taking their power back and trying not to let him ruin their fun. Other than a POV shot, this is about the widest we ever get in this whole interaction. Although I do it a lot when I direct TV, I absolutely detest standard coverage. “Master” shots like this were always roaming between characters, and then sometimes I would pair characters together and get singles, and that’s it. The singles changed throughout – maybe starting frontal, then going into profile – the point was to work around actor movement and not confine the performer to hit marks. It made it a bit harder to edit for sure, but the result feels more fluid and natural to me – at least for this film. Catherine and I actually tried to do a wide master that held all the actors from head to toe, and we were horrified as it looked like a stage play. Even though I had never really shot this loose before, I just trusted it would work out – and it did.”
7. “Here’s Kyle and his friend Mike. Dylan (Kyle) had acted before, but Aidan (Mike) had not. Aidan is a rapper in real life, and we cast him from online ads. There was a specific type of guy I wanted for each role – most were inspired by the boys I grew up around in Barrie, Ontario. Mara Zigler was our incredible costume designer. She just got it. We were fighting against outdated portrayals of teenagers in TV shows and wanted every detail of every outfit to be thought through and feel authentic. I was also very adamant about not having characters appeal only to good or only bad. Almost every character has shades to them. They all do detestable things – even Lou and Chantal. However, Kyle is pretty evil. Although to get to this characterization, I worked with Dylan on Kyle’s backstory. I don’t believe most people are born bad people, so we decided that Kyle had probably witnessed a lot of abuse in his childhood. He was insecure and traumatized and took it out on women. In this scene, he is triggered by Chantal taking back her power, so you see him squirm a bit. Our amazing production designer, Thea Hollatz, really understood the low-key vibe of this ‘beach’ hang. We talked about bush parties of my youth and thought about stuff that would’ve been left there from parties gone by – old plastic chairs, beer bottles, pieces of wood. We actually had SFX bury a gas line in the sand to create a ‘bonfire’ here as well.”
8. “Here is an example of a two-shot grouping Chantal and Josh together which visually indicates their perceived loyalty to each other. It’s very two-against-one here. Chantal is staying close to Josh and is framed with him, standing – Kyle is sitting, outnumbered. Although, in reality the power dynamic is not what it seems. Is Josh really fighting to protect Chantal, or is he fighting to prove his manhood to his bully? Chantal, in a way, kind of becomes a pawn in this scene – a status symbol for whatever man possesses her.”
9. “Although appearing insignificant, I really love this shot. Here is the moment where Kyle tells Josh, “You know they’re not gonna fuck you, right?” Right at this moment, our focus puller Murray Angotti did a beautiful rack right to Josh for his reaction over Lou’s back. Scott (Josh) is really an incredible actor, giving us these subtle reactions that carry so much weight. At this moment, I think he pretends to be offended but is embarrassed that he’s called out. Murray – who I went to film school with and has worked on so many of my films – had to have this instinctual symbiotic connection with Lutes as I never told them when to rack to what character at what moment. Catherine had to decide who it was important to be on and when, as the actors moved around differently in each take. She has previously described her work in these scenes as ‘dancing with the actors’, which it truly was. I realize now that I try to create environments for actors and crew to operate based on instincts more than formal modes of shooting and coverage. I think that’s when magic really happens.”
10. “Here’s where Kyle decides to come up from behind Chantal and physically take her away from Josh. I wanted this to feel unexpected, and I think handheld really helps contribute to that feeling of immediacy. This moment also foreshadows the violence to come. In the background, you can see an old mattress that Thea placed there for texture. I had originally imagined this scene taking place on an actual beach with waves. We shot this at the Wainfleet Quarry near Port Colborne. Originally when I saw pictures of it, there was much more water. However, the year we shot this (2017), a lot of the water had dried up, which, in the end, I didn’t mind because I never wanted Firecrackers to look ‘pretty’. The atmosphere and the locations of the film were very specific in my mind. I wanted a place that had felt like it was left behind.”
11. “Here, Kyle is taking Chantal away, and hell breaks loose. Both Lou and Josh try to go after him but are stopped by the other boys. The camera gets quite loose and chaotic here. I wanted the audience to feel like we were in the action—from playfully teenage banter to suddenly something quite dark.”
12. “This is one of the rare wide shots in the film. This is Lou’s/Josh’s POV of Kyle and Chantal. Again, I had thought Kyle would take her into the water and throw her in, but because the water had dried up, we ended up having them at a distance. I like this shot because you can’t hear their exchange, you can only judge from their body language that Chantal starts out mad, but you can see her being manipulated by him. They end up even kissing a bit, but it looks uncomfortable. I never wanted to go in for coverage of this interaction.”
13. “Then we cut to Lou looking. She’s being convinced here by Eric – a wannabe – who is constantly telling her she’s overreacting. He’s the king of gaslighting and an example of the many people who end up protecting abusers. Because Lou is at a distance and sees Chantal end up kissing Kyle, this is a pivotal moment where she decides to ‘let it be’ – which ends up being a terrible mistake. I think there’s a part of Lou here that feels like Chantal has abandoned her, yet again, for an abusive asshole, and therefore goes off with Eric to his car. In the end, she did the wrong thing – she should’ve gone after Chantal. This mistake haunts her for the rest of the film.”
14. “We end the scene here with Josh’s reaction, specifically to seeing Chantal ‘choose’ Kyle over him. You can see his disappointment in this reaction shot, and he ends up leaving the beach entirely. For me, Josh is that friend a lot of girls think is on their side, but ultimately he’s not all that different from Kyle. He’s not all that worried about Chantal’s safety here – he’s more upset that his ego is hurt. He never says this, but his actions going forward in the film show where his loyalty lies. In the end, this scene really hints at all the themes and layers in the film, highlighting that patriarchy is toxic not only to women but men and people of any gender. It harms us all and degrades our humanity.”
You can watch Firecrackers on CBC Gem.
