gavin6942 Depicts a dream sequence about the brutal rape and torture of director Kenneth Anger himself (as a teenager) by a group of sailors on the street (after trying to pick one of them up).Anger later said, "This flick is all I have to say about being seventeen, the United States Navy, American Christmas, and the Fourth of July." Holy smokes, guys. This is about as hard-hitting as it comes for the 1940s. The homosexual theme, the intense violence... this is still shocking and revolting in the 2010s... we have have grown soft to violence, but if we have I can only imagine how people in the 40s reacted when they saw this. Terrifying!

Michael_Elliott Fireworks (1947)*** (out of 4) Kenneth Anger's earliest surviving film was apparently influenced by him trying to pick up a sailor only to be beaten by the man and his friends. Trying to explain what this film is about would be pointless as I'm sure each viewing could watch it and come away with something different. The basic set-up has a man walking into a "Gents" room where he watches a man flex his muscles and then he tries to pick him up. FIREWORKS is certainly a very weird film as is its history, which included Anger being arrested on obscenity charges. Seeing the film today it's hard to believe that anyone would make too much fuss about it and I'd argue that the homosexuality isn't nearly as on display as the reputation of the film would lead you to believe. For the most part Anger has done a pretty good job in regards to the style and images seen in the film. The surrealist nature is really impressive and I thought several of the images were very nightmarish and they really came across as someone a lot more experienced behind the camera. I'm sure this film isn't going to appeal to everyone but fans of the weird should at least give it a shot.

jennyhor2004 Quite a remarkable debut film from a 17 year old Kenneth Anger, this is a coming-of-age piece recreating a dream he had: the film explores homosexual attraction, submission and sadomasochistic violence. A young man (Anger himself) wakes up from a dream about being saved by a sailor in a large room of objects: among other thing, several photographs of a sailor carrying an unconscious man who could be Anger's character himself, a hand with its middle finger amputated, a clay figurine. He dresses and goes out into the night; at a bar, he picks up a sailor who struts and poses for the enthralled youngster. The sailor beats up our man who then goes back outside but is accosted by a group of sailors who strip him, gang-rape him and thrash him with chains. The scenes of violence are extreme and painful to watch but are skilfully done so that the viewer imagines the worst being done to Anger's character, not actually see any torture or punishment.The 14-minute film appears to be ambivalent about celebrating gay sexuality: Anger's character experiences liberation but it looks extremely degrading and you wonder how much suffering he undergoes is necessary. Sure, scenes at the end of the film suggest the youngster is fulfilled – the photographs can be disposed of, the hand is mended and the visual narrative hints at an important rite of passage being completed – but all the same, you feel the young man will keep going back for more of the same punishment. Still, the depiction of raw sexual attraction, willing submission, violence and pain leading to transformation and fulfillment is very powerful, even beautiful at times, especially as it's coming from a very young film-maker. There is humour both bawdy and witty, particularly in scenes featuring the pouring of milk over the young man (hint, hint) and some fireworks being set off from an unusual launch-pad! The piece looks conventional enough and Anger hadn't yet learned how to layer images one over the other and edit shots to enhance the narrative and bring the film to a climax. Instead the orchestral music score, sounding very typical melodramatic Hollywood of the period (1940s), is put to work creating the appropriate moods, ratcheting up tension, bringing suspense and celebrating the protagonist's sexual awakening. Though there are a couple of scenes where the joins in the musical soundtrack are awkward, overall the marriage of music to plot and mood is well done. Close-ups at critical points in the film, taking place during the rape and torture scene, bring out the protagonist's pain and the brutality of sailors beating him with chains as he suffers without protest. There's a little bit of a religious element here: the young man is Christ-like in his willingness to suffer and the pouring of milk over his body could be construed as a resurrection.Even at this early stage of his career, Anger was demonstrating a unique vision and a style of filming quite unlike what his film-director contemporaries were making. Sound is completely unnecessary: the protagonist is never named and so he might be considered representative of all young sexual novices who must undergo necessary ordeals to become fully adult and sexually aware.

Clark Richards This film has a dozen images in it that will stay tucked away in your head long after you can remember why exactly they're clawing at you. I guess the most interesting aspect from watching this film is how I was constantly repeating to myself, "This was made in 1947?".It is hard to believe that a film so overtly homo-erotic could find such a large audience at that time. That alone speaks to the overall impact the images from this film have on the viewer. Almost equally as amazing is that Anger was only 17 when he made this film. That's very brave, but strictly as a movie, it really didn't do much for me. Sometimes surrealistic images and their meaning can be lost on me, though there's quite a lot of this movie that is unmistakably "on the nose".I'm not sure quite what to make of it, but I hope that Anger worked out whatever it was he was going through at that time.