Review: ‘Firebird’ reaches for the sky but fizzles out with familiarity [Grade: B-]

More romance and less thriller, Firebird is packed with brilliant performances, but the lack of audacious choices and the very normalization of queerness knocks this romance down just a peg.

Touted as a romantic thriller, Peeter Rebane’s Firebird is a queer love story that’s the latest in LGBTQIA+ romances to hit mainstream media, which is finally beginning to normalize queer romance in a way we’ve been waiting years for.

Co-written by Rebane and its star, Tom Prior, Firebird is based on a memoir, The Story of Roman, by Sergey Fetisov. Fetisov (Prior) is a Russian actor serving in the Soviet military in the late 70s at the height of Soviet rule in Russia. He fell in love with a fighter pilot named Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii), and the film begins at a Soviet base camp in occupied Estonia, when Roman transfers there. The first half of Firebird takes place at the base before Sergey gets discharged and leaves to Moscow for theater school, while the second half spans a couple of decades as it follows the two lovers trying to be together at a time when being gay was illegal in Russia and Roman had certain duties to fulfill as an officer of the Soviet military.

Zagorodnii and Prior’s chemistry on screen is off the charts, and from the moment Roman and Sergey meet there’s a homoerotic tension that builds until it combusts with some pretty steamy sex scenes. At the start of the film Sergey is assigned as Roman’s driver and guide for the base when he arrives, which is how the two end up spending so much time together, but it’s their love of photography that really bonds them. Hiding their homosexuality behind the lenses of their cameras, there’s a focus on the male anatomy from the very beginning, when Sergey is photographing his comrades at the base and can’t help but to focus on the handsome facial features of the men around him. Their romance begins in the dark room, because of course, as Roman teaches Sergey how to develop photos and guides his hand (ever so lovingly) into developing solutions. 

It’s this time at the base where Firebird truly excels, because it gives us what any movie-lover wants: Tension and suspense that the two can get caught at any time.  Every stolen moment they have, and any sense of affection that happens in a public space, is automatically so enticing that you wonder if that is going to be the moment someone finds them out. When Roman get anonymously reported for homosexuality, it’s no surprise to the audience because admittedly the two are pretty cavalier with their actions. This rightfully motivates Roman to be more cautious about spending time with Sergey, and eventually forces him to marry Sergey’s best friend, Louisa (Diana Pozharskaya). 

So begins the trope of the bisexual love triangle, featuring two closeted gay men and the woman who’s wedged between them. Being a true story based on a memoir, the trope is more forgivable than if this plot had been whipped up by Prior and Rebane on their own. What’s less forgivable is that the entire second half of the film falls apart when the risk of being found out at the military base gets taken away, and the “thriller” aspect of the film is all but erased. 

Visually speaking, the film is stunning. Mait Mäekivi’s cinematography plays with color in extraordinary ways, with splashes of red and orange shining brightly through otherwise monochromatic and stiff color schemes, particularly when our two lovers are interacting. The use of these colors are poignant, whether it’s a scene in a darkroom where the two characters touch for the first time, or a sex scene that sparked like the engines of one of Roman’s fighter planes. These colors feel specifically intended as a bold retooling of the Soviet flag, taking back a color that incited fear and rage and making it stand for passion and queer love. 

But what Firebird gains in visuals, it loses in story. Is it because audiences could predict each turn before they happened, or because Roman’s death didn’t hit the way it should have? Perhaps. More likely, it’s probably because queer storytelling has come so far in the last few years that to tell the story of two men falling in love when they shouldn’t be isn’t good enough anymore. It felt like many other queer films that are luckily available to watch in 2022, and while normally that would be reason to critique the film, it’s the fact this film could even blend in with the rest that makes me sort of… proud?

Firebird is no doubt a labor of love for Prior and Rebane, who began crafting this story before 2017. The two interviewed the real Sergey that year, and it’s clear that they wanted to honor his story. The lack of drama in the second half and the film’s problematic pacing is more a result of staying true to Sergey’s story and his love for Roman, which is applaudable. While Sergey died before the film could be released, this is a visual telling of his memoir that would probably make him very proud. It’s just a shame that it came out in 2022.

If Firebird was released ten years ago, or maybe even just four years ago, it might have made more of an impact. The fact that we’d be getting a queer Soviet military love story released in theaters? It would have made headlines. But today there are no shortage queer love stories being told, and to be honest the film feels like many we’ve seen before. The tragic ending, the love triangle, the inability to stay together. All of these aspects are so common that it unfortunately robs the film of its “thriller” descriptor. No matter how you told this story, the fact is it’s been told before.

Standards for queer love stories have gotten higher, and that is likely why Firebird falls so flat. For this critic, it also doesn’t help that it’s a tragedy. We’ve become inured to seeing queer love stories that end in sadness, where our protagonists have to protect themselves from a world that doesn’t understand them. Yes, it’s based off a memoir, and there’s a certain respect one must have for all the gay men that lead these lives, but perhaps it’s time to pick the memoirs of the gay men that found love back then and got a chance to keep it. We’ve seen plenty of gay tragedy in cinema, but certainly audiences deserve to see more gay happiness too. 

It’s hard to fault Firebird for its tragedy, because these films are inevitable. Queer people around the world have faced more years of torment and torture than years of true happiness, so of course we’re going to get tragic queer films about them. Sergey lived a bold life, choosing to go after who he loved even when it was too dangerous to do it. Roman, despite being a Soviet officer, risked everything for every moment of happiness he could get with Sergey, even when he was forced to marry a woman. And as weird as it is to say, these men’s sacrifices are part of the reason we can sit here and say, “Yeah, Firebird was great, but we’ve seen it before.” 

I love that I can say that, that we’ve gotten to a point where the bar is so high a film like Firebird doesn’t quite reach it anymore. This film is still going to change lives, it’s still going to introduce audiences to queer romance, normalizing it to a point where it’s not a big deal that it’s available in small towns in rural America. That’s what makes this film so epic, because even in its failures it does a service to the queer community that will go down in history, and that is a feat to be proud of.

Grade: B-

Firebird is currently in theaters from Roadside Attractions and The Factory.

Photo: Herrki-Erich Merilla