Review of Burning Man (2011) by Kevin B — 04 Jul 2012

A film about the place of love in one's life. The message and lacking structure remind largely of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), only this time the story is tragic and heartbreaking with unexpected irony and humour every now and then.

Very intricately built plot where the real is intertwined with the imaginary. The broken storyline clusters around the recollections of the happiness a young father, a cook, bathed in when being with his breathtakingly beautiful wife who slowly faded as her cancer progressed.

The film takes a masterful effort to depict the vane rebellion of the young man against the evil fate that takes away all the dear he ever had with amazing tools: as objects fire up in the sick imagination of the 'burning man', we start to realise the pain he goes through, without yet knowing the reason of the agony.

And slowly, jumping back and forth in the narration, the director intensifies the essence of the story, which is the pain of loving something you, with all the earthly effort, cannot have; and how it eventually turns into acceptance of the inevitable and to the love to his daughter.