Born in Flames (1983)
There is a lovely irony sitting at the heart of Born in Flames, and it is this: made in 1983 and set in a near-future America, it now works best as a time capsule of the very moment it was made. Lizzie Borden's guerrilla-shot feminist drama imagined the United States a decade on from a socialist revolution that was supposed to fix everything and conspicuously has not. Women are still waiting. The promises are still hollow. And a loose network of activists, pirate-radio DJs and a fledgling Women's Army is slowly, messily running out of patience.
The dystopia here is a light one. This is not a glossy, stylised vision of a broken future, nothing as baroque as A Clockwork Orange. The near-future New York of Born in Flames is really just New York with the dial turned a couple of notches, a slightly tilted reflection of the city outside the window. And that window, as it turns out, is the best thing about the film.
Shot on the fly, on real streets, with grain and grit and a punkish documentary texture, early-eighties New York hums through every frame. Aesthetically, it is something to behold. I was reminded watching it of the way Koyaanisqatsi captures a city in a particular moment of its life, that feeling of watching footage that was never intended as preservation but has become it anyway. The Lower East Side energy, the downtown scrappiness, the sense that this thing was made by people who had something to say and very little money to say it with, all of that gives it a vitality that the more polished filmmaking of the era sometimes lacked. The acting is unpolished in the way these DIY productions tend to be, but there is a sincerity to it that you can only really pull off when everybody in the room genuinely believes in what they are making.
Where it lost me was the pace. For all the urgency of its message, and the fervour that clearly burns through its politics, Born in Flames is a slow, often meandering watch. The calls to action, the political heat, the sense of a movement coiling and preparing to strike, it does not always translate into momentum on the screen. I found myself admiring it from a slight remove, appreciating it as a document rather than surrendering to it as an experience. There is a difference between a film that challenges you and a film that tests your patience, and this one, at times, felt closer to the latter.
And then there is the question of how it has aged. Its politics were plainly provocative and alive in 1983, genuinely transgressive in ways that carried real risk. That matters, and I do not want to flatten it. But a good deal of the film now feels dated, both in its filmmaking grammar and in the way it frames its arguments. Watching it as a historical artefact, as a record of a time, a place and a movement, is genuinely fascinating. Watching it as a piece of cinema to actually sit through on a Tuesday evening is a harder sell.
I am glad I saw it. Genuinely. It deserves its reputation as a landmark of independent feminist filmmaking, and there is real value in spending time with it. But I would be less than honest if I said it held me throughout. It is more rewarding to have seen than to actually watch, which is an odd thing to say about any film, and not entirely a compliment.
Three stars. A fascinating snapshot of its era, and a film whose place in history is secure even if its grip on my attention was not.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1983 | Watched: 2026-08-24
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: MUBI Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store
Buy: Apple TV Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Criterion Channel · OVID
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · Fandango At Home
Physical: Amazon US
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