Written and directed by Sandulela Asanda

Starring Esihle Ndleleni, Muadi Ilung, Mila Smith, Khensani Khosa, Ntsimedi Gwangwa, Basetsana Motloung, and Rob van Vuuren

This pumps up the classic journey of exploring queerness in the teenage years with such an infectious vibrancy that makes it a blast to ride through. I’d only heard about it just recently, and holy crap, this needs more eyes on it. The first few minutes alone succeed at planting me in Luthando’s fantastical POV and jazzing up the screen with colorful visuals that convey how intensely she’s engaging with her world. When you’re a youth, all of these feelings, relationships, questions, and obstacles can smack you in the face with a full-on impact. So it’s quite appropriate for these elements to splash themselves everywhere in this movie, and if that’s what we’re getting, then it might as well happen in a lovably lively fashion under the helm of writer-director Sandulela Asanda. This is her feature directorial debut, leaving me eager to see what else she’ll work on, because she’s clearly got a wildly vivid voice. It all fits with Luthando’s tale as she wrestles with the realization that, hey, she’s a lesbian who really, really likes her new classmate Ayanda, with Esihle Ndleleni and Muadi Ilung bouncing a likable chemistry back and forth between each other. Sure, we’ve seen these tropes plenty of times before, but the execution flourishes with the refreshing charm that it needs to help it all become a hoot. Ayanda being a Death Note fan, the “Be wise and condomize!” line, and the relatable moment of Luthando tossing her phone away after accidentally liking a photo of Ayanda’s on Instagram are amongst just a few of the many enjoyable beats in this flick. I additionally appreciate how this movie slips in its depiction of microaggressive racism against the backdrop of modern-day South Africa. The moment where a schoolteacher gets all, “No, no, there’s no need for us to bring up apartheid and make us uncomfortable”—oh dear, that rings very true to real life. People would absolutely pull that BS and act like we need to push the concept of systemic racism and bigotry into the past because openly talking about it in the present day is supposedly too much for white people to handle.

Overall, I’m happy to have gone on Prime Video and found Black Burns Fast to be an underseen little treasure that I’d recommend if you’re searching for something bright and quirky.

My final rating: 4 out of 5 stars