We review Brimstone and Glory, Born Racer and American Animals

Director: Viktor Jakovleski

Running time: 67 mins

Rating: PG (Some scenes may disturb)

Verdict: An arsonist’s wet dream.

COMING IN

at a modest 67 minutes, this firecracker of a movie is appropriately punchy and zeroes in on the small (by Mexican standards) town of Tultepec, which once a year lights up to celebrate San Juan de Dios, the patron saint of fireworks.

But this is no “hang a lantern in the window” kind of festival; instead, this is a brutally unforgiving two evenings of high-octane pyrotechnics.

OSH has no place here.

The doco loosely follows the fortunes of Santi, a young boy whose family is entering a float into the “running of the bulls”. Giant bull floats are paraded down the street on the second night of celebrations and systematically blown up in all manner of ways.

There is an element of machismo on show as the pundits, who are mostly men, follow the pyro-fanatic faith like some sort of rite of passage. But as much as the festival purports to be celebrating the 16th century saint — who was credited with rushing into a burning hospital to rescue patients and escaping untouched by the flames (or so the story goes) — it really does seem more like an excuse to blow stuff up.

Regardless, the heady mix of beauty and lunacy will have you giggling in amazement.

The film keeps dialogue to a minimum (a bonus for subtitleaverse film-goers), choosing instead to focus more on the fireworks. The results offer stunning visuals that capture the beauty of seemingly every individual spark (some of which were shot at an incredibly high 1500 frames per second), all perfectly wed to a majestic score.

It’s utterly mesmerising, and although the narrative could’ve been stronger, Brimstone & Glory remains a triumph of sensory delights.