Fireworks Review: Based on the original Japanese Film 3 Ft Ball and Souls directed, written and edited by Yoshio Kato, this Indonesian drama movie, originally titled as Kembang Api is a remake of the aforementioned 2017 premiere. It stars Donny Damara as Fahmi, Ringgo Agus Rahman as Raga, Marsha Timothy as Sukma and Hanggini as Anggun in the titular roles, and has been directed by Herwin Novianto, with Alim Sudio and Yoshio Kato contributing as the writers.

Having a runtime of 1hr 44 minutes, the movie has been restricted to adult audiences due to mentions of suicide. English subtitles are available on Netflix.

Fireworks Movie Review Does Not Contain Spoilers (Trigger Warning: Mentions of Suicide)

Fireworks Movie Synopsis

Four strangers intend to end their lives by blowing themselves up with a large ball of Fireworks in a secluded warehouse. Neither have they met each other before this event, nor do they know about the problem perturbing them respectively. Using pseudonyms, they form a group on an online platform so that they don’t have to go though this fateful end alone. Without setting any set rules to be eligible for joining the circle, they finally meet on the day they plan to kill themselves, but as fate would have it, a recurring time loop swallows them up, barring them from freely executing their bloody plan.

Fireworks Review: Discussion

If you’re someone watches movies a lot, you’ve probably already come across many such titles that unravel the plot twist of time loops in the narrative. By dishing out this bit of information, I’m not spoiling the movie for you at all, because this is actually the basic premise instead. The happenings that fall after this realisation are what make up for the true story surrounding a conversation around mental health.

Time loops in themselves further accentuate the absurdity of life, especially when who’d been considering living their lives as the hard part now have to encounter a series of events that make dying even harder. Whatever each of these characters are going through, eventually, their ultimate dilemma becomes that they can’t seem to escape life as death itself keeps averting them.

Before I Fall, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, Edge of Tomorrow and Palm Springs are some American films that cater to this sci-fi sensibility. Yet Fireworks quite differently approaches this idea by restricting its small group of cast members to a single room throughout the film’s duration. They’re barely seen moving out, rather they only move into the location in question, and initiate their conversation, or the lack thereof initially in the same congested warehouse room. Sitting around huge ball of fireworks in a circle, they’re reluctant to discuss the events or situations that ultimately led them to this lowest in their lives.

Donny Damara, Marsha Timothy, Ringgo Agus, and Hanggini play out the confusion of each of their characters and the transpiring unlikely alliance between each other to the best of their abilities. And, especially in a movie which isn’t governed by actions or movements, rather only dependent on the conversations between these people, it’s all up to them to build up the intensity and tense ambience to keep the audience seated, and so they do, when supported by the heavy foreboding background score setting the tone for their talks.

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In the end, the reason why this time loop was kickstarted is never revealed to the viewer, but that’s not even the point of investigation here, because each of these characters’ lives are what preoccupy our minds till the end. As their discussion unfold, they reveal their true human colours and do the first thing we expect of any person to do in such a situation – be judgemental of the other.

Through this portrayal, the director makes great efforts to give us an insight into the average human psyche. Moreover, with three of these four people being grown ups and the fourth one being a high school, he further cranks up the tension by shedding light on the dysfunctionality of the germination gap between them.

Although their respective pains are unveiled, the the movie doesn’t necessarily dig into the angst of pining for death itself. Additionally, the several sequences wherein these characters await the bombardment of the fireworks to go off, the visual presentation of these scenes isn’t able to convey the excruciating and gut-wrenching implications of the act. Finally, we come down to the last few moments of the film which bring in the resolution.

The end completely rids us off the sense of fulfilment that one would’ve felt earlier. A futile happy montage plays out in the end which completely borrows the appearance of an absurd advertisement where somehow everyone is always happy without any reason.

Final Thoughts on Kembang Api Film

Interestingly enough, despite the characters being closed inside with the door shut, the film proves that cinematic visual representations don’t always need to rely on high budgets, grand gestures or big actions to make it all seem worthwhile the audience’s attention. As long as the subject matter itself is profound and the crew members are gutsy enough to execute its gritty presentation, then all is well.

Dealing with a heavy topic, the film isn’t necessarily appropriate for everyone. Nevertheless, it doesn’t really dig into the complexity of the moral discourse revolving around theme of Life Vs Death. In the end, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that this plot and its characters very much reminded me of the play Waiting for Godot, but in this scenario, Godot isn’t God, or any other sublime individual, but death itself.

The new Fireworks Netflix Indonesian film is now streaming on the OTT platform.

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