Flame was apparently the first Zimbabwean feature film directed by a woman. Hence it tells the story of two young women, Florence and Nyasha, who in 1975 join the ranks of the African nationalist ZANU fighting against Rhodesia's white minority government in the country's civil war. Through their experiences, it seeks to describe (roughly) the course of the war and the role women played in it, especially as combatants. Beautifully photographed and proficiently staged, the film is a bit hampered by rather pedestrian dialogue, uncertain pacing and somewhat obvious use of voice-over when describing the women's progress through training and war. The war itself is visualised modestly in brief flashes of ambush, sniper fire or strafing aircraft, probably faithfully to such a "bush war". The film illustrates the reasons for the war and its toll on the individual, but it can be awkward at times.
Rather than the story of a war, the film is stronger as a drama about the different life choices of two women, which lead them along different paths, yet ultimately leave them similarly disenfranchised. Neither the traditional village way of life nor the material affluence brought on by a city career seem to offer the women a chance to full autonomy or place in the society they fought for. Wars and revolutions change things, but especially women often find that surprisingly many things do not change for them at all. There could be room for more thorough exploration of the failures of revolution, but the film sidesteps this by praising the comradeship of former fighters as a bandage and a model community, perhaps to the whole nation as well.
So ultimately the film's success rides on the backs of its young protagonists, and Kunonga and Mahaka bring to their roles the necessary combination of youthful determination, insecurity, anger, loss and joy to make it all work. The final image may in fact encapsulate well the life-affirming basic message of the film: a young African woman smiling hopefully at the uncertain future after all the grief, struggle and loss, finally among her friends again. Her journey is worth seeing.
