“Firebird” (2022) is an Estonian British film adaptation of Sergey Fetisov’s memoir, “A Tale about of Roman.” It starts in 1977 at a Soviet-occupied Estonia when Sergey (Tom Prior) is wrapping up his mandatory military service and sparks fly when he meets Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii), a dashing fighter pilot, but same sex male romantic relationships are illegal. How will they honor their relationship without risking it all?
I was really looking forward to watching “Firebird,” but it is not it, y’all. When I am entering a completely unfamiliar world, I have no problem relating to a different period, country, gender, race, politics, sexual orientation and even delicacy because “Tom of Finland” (2017) took my breath away and never let me go. A good movie can throw you into the deep end without a viewer being lost, but “Firebird” is not that kind of film. It is a movie that prefers to tell, but not enough to orient and inform.
“Firebird” assumes that the audience is familiar with Fetisov and thinks that it is self-evident how talented and magnetic he is, but it is not. It left me mystified why so many people, Soviet officials and classmates, favored him. Prior delivers a nice performance, but if you are looking in a crowd and want to be instantly blown away, Zagorodnii is the clear, superficial choice. Sergey needs to standout in a distinct way to signal that he will be a star, but Prior never accomplishes more than being a young man in love and struggling to navigate an unfair system while living fully. Without Google, I would not know that Fetisov would become an acting legend.
“Firebird” did not spend enough time developing Sergei as a human being. We get a glimpse of his childhood trauma and many references to his beloved mother, who remains off screen, but we do not get a sense of him as a person apart from Roman until they become equals. For me to root for the relationship, I must understand each man and whether they are a suitable match. Sergei is finding himself in the first part of the movie, but other than being devoted to his family, fun-loving and beloved, he seems aimless with a vague desire to be an actor with photography as common ground. The film uses Sergei reading out loud or discussing a play to prose dump and infer how he reflects on his own circumstances.
The first half of “Firebird” felt torn between being a coming-of-age love story and getting into the machinations of Cold War air force shenanigans like a Soviet “Top Gun.” At these unfortunate moments, this film reminded me of the lackluster “Red Tails” (2012) with its cringeworthy CGI. Also because we have no innate understanding of the base’s objectives, it is hard to get bearings on whether we should be rooting for Roman’s success. It is one thing to theoretically understand that Roman is invested in his career and has a sense of freedom when he is flying, but at least in George Lucas’ lukewarm war action film, viewers understand World War II’s basics. I am not into romance, but the only times that these moments worked were when it reflected the tension in Sergey and Roman’s private romance and public facades. When Roman risks his life, Sergey wants to check on him, but does not have a plausible cover story to explain his presence in a restricted area. Acting like a normal human being can destroy their lives.
While Sergey and Roman may be the reason for the season, and their physical chemistry is undeniable, the romance is sweet, but not arresting. It seems surprising that their relationship survives on and off for six years. “Firebird” has one scene which felt as if Sergey moved on and was flirty with a classmate, but it went nowhere, which felt like a missed opportunity. The movie played the relationship dynamic as if Roman held the cards, but it was a two-way street, and a star like Sergey would not necessarily pine away alone, especially when the relationship appeared to end early. He was an ascending in the arts. He had choices.
“Firebird” picks up momentum once Sergey leaves the base for Moscow, and Roman struggles to find a plausible way to join him without blowing his cover as a straight man. Sergey becomes the uncompromising idealist, and Roman is more practical. It leads to dramatic confrontation scenes, which permits supporting actors Diana Pozharskaya, who plays Luisa, an unwitting beard, and Jake Henderson, who plays Volodja, Sergey’s friend, to upstage the leads and elicit Prior’s strongest performances.
“Firebird” decided to be marketable over culturally immersive and elected for the characters to speak accented English instead of Estonian, which was jarring. I went into the film expecting that the characters would speak a foreign language. Instead it felt as if it was just another film from an American or British production company that hired actors to employ what we imagine would be an Estonian accent, which made it more incomprehensible for me. My kingdom for closed captioning!
Unlike British and American films set during the Cold War, it is not dour, but colorful so while the film does not shy away from showing the oppression, visually it looks superimposed on an innately vibrant and vivid landscape and characters. Peeter Rebane in his directorial feature debut establishes a strong narrative rhythm by showing people enjoying life before a Soviet bureaucratic disruption disproportionately cracks down on the harmless fun such as sitting in the forest, swimming, or listening to music. Most people are more concerned with enjoying themselves than enforcing any political ideology or ideals, and most films about Soviet occupation make it seem as if being grim was normal. The occupation is the party pooper in “Firebird.” The Moscow scenes were indistinguishable from the cocktail party scenes after the dissolution of the USSR in “Compartment Number 6” (2022) except Sergey belongs. The Estonian landscape is transcendent even with the severe fascist architectural style. There is an irrepressible joyous tone in the film that even oppression cannot squash. There was a single scene which felt like a pulled punch when Sergey is either too shocked or refusing to obey otherwise the balanced approach to depicting quotidian life as a colonized European country worked well.
“Firebird” adheres to conventional beauty moral standards. The bad people are the least attractive characters in the film, and the good ones are stunning. I personally love bald guys, but this film does not see it for them. Hair loss seems related to nastiness in this film. Unlike the stereotypes of women in the USSR as homely, all the young ones could be super models. The alternative is older, approaching elderly, ladies with severe veneers, but playful centers.
I am glad to live in a world where “Firebird” can be in theaters, but overall, it felt more suitable as a television movie than cinema. While Fetisov participated in the production process, he did not survive to see the final product. Obviously his opinion about the film would matter more than mine, but I think there is plenty of room for another filmmaker to take a stab at adapting this memoir.
