Rotten Tomatoes reports an 88% approval rating based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10.[6]
Variety wrote that it has "all the advantages and the disadvantages of a home movie".[7] The Guardian in 2021 described the film as a zero-budget underground film with all the hallmarks of guerilla filmmaking, writing that "Borden is filming on the real New York streets, also using real news footage of real demos and real police violence" and that the "anarchic spirit of agitprop pulses from this scrappy, smart, subversive film." In an interview, Borden herself said, "I could only shoot once a month, when I had $200,...I would gather everyone in this old Lincoln Continental I kept parked in front of my loft, go somewhere and shoot, and then I'd spend the interim just editing."
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Only those who already share Miss Borden's ideas are apt to find her film persuasive."[1] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle wrote "Beautifully made, courageously edited, and swift-moving, this challenging, provocative film is a work that is both humanist and revolutionary."[8] Frances Dickinson of Time Out London wrote that Borden "[handles] her story with audacity and make[s] even the driest argument crackle with humour, while the more poignant moments burn with a fierce white heat."[9] TV Guide rated it 2/4 stars and wrote "This feminist film wins laurels for close attention to detail in a radical filmmaking effort."[10] Greg Baise of the Metro Times called it "an early '80s landmark of indie and queer cinema".[11] In 2022, the film was ranked joint 243rd in Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time poll, tied for the distinction along with 21 other films, including A Clockwork Orange, Annie Hall, and Possession.[12]
References
- The movie refers to many feminist movements and tools, including black feminism, white feminism, consciousness raising, independent radio, and police brutality.
- There is also a reference to wages for housework, a feminist social movement from the seventies addressing women's reproductive labor, in a scene in which the president announces on TV that “For the first time in our history we’ll provide women with wages for housework”, just before a group of women hijack the broadcast to pass a militant message. This moment in the film highlights political antagonisms, between white hetero-normative feminism and anti-racist and anti-capitalist feminism.[13]
- The movie refers to US policies like the workfare programme and the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1976, which discriminate single and queer women (news scene where the journalist announces that ‘male heads of families’ would get jobs).[13]
- Media historian Lucas Hilderbrand made a parallel with A Black Feminist Statement, from the Combahee River Collective (1977), a Black feminist lesbian organization.[14]
- The film includes the Red Krayola song "Born In Flames", released as a single in 1980,[15] as well as the songs "I’ll Take You There" by the African-American gospel, R&B, and soul group The Staple Singers, "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday, "Voodoo Child" by Jimi Hendrix and "New Town" by the British female punk rock group The Slits.
- The casting of the movie stages civil rights lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy, Adele Bertei from the bands The Bloods and The Contortions, film director Kathryn Bigelow, and actors Ron Vawter and Eric Bogosian.
Influence
The film is discussed in Christina Lane's book Feminist Hollywood: From "Born in Flames" to "Point Break".[16]
A “graphic translation” of the movie made by artist Kaisa Lassinaro, which contains an interview of Lizzie Borden, was published by Occasional Papers in 2011.[17] The book is a collage composition made of screencaps with a selection of dialogues from the movie.
In 2013, a dossier on the film was published as a special issue of Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory.[18] With an introduction from Craig Willse and Dean Spade, the dossier includes a number of essays that address race, queerness, intersectionality, radicalism, violence, and feminism in the film.
The film has experienced something of a renaissance after the 35mm restoration print premiered in 2016 at the Anthology Film Archives.[19] followed by promotion by the Criterion Channel and a re-release that took Borden to screenings around the world.[20] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote "the free, ardent, spontaneous creativity of Born in Flames emerges as an indispensable mode of radical change—one that many contemporary filmmakers with political intentions have yet to assimilate."[21] He also wrote "Borden's exhilarating collage-like story stages news reports, documentary sequences, and surveillance footage alongside tough action scenes and musical numbers; her violent vision is both ideologically complex and chilling."[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote "this unruly, unclassifiable film — perhaps the sole entry in the hybrid genre of radical-lesbian-feminist sci-fi vérité — premiered two years into the Reagan regime, but its fury proves as bracing today as it was back when this country began its inexorable shift to the right."[22] Borden was invited to show the new 35mm print in Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastián, Milan, Toronto, the Edinburgh Film Festival, London Film Festival, along with screenings in Detroit, Rochester, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.[19]
