Review of Burning Palms (2010) by Caleb C — 04 Jan 2012

About the most fucked up film I've seen this year (Although, I have yet to see Shame). The subject matters and situations in these "graphic novel eqsue" adaptions reminded me of the work from Todd Solondz ('Palindromes' and 'Happiness').

Thee approach and pacing here, however, is a lot more direct and doesn't jump to shock like Solondz films, but just lays it out on the table for us to see. All the stories are quite disturbing and not something that will be embraced by most audiences.

In a lot of ways this is an exploitation film that is sure to be taken as offense to most viewers, hence it's bad ratings. Personally, I give this film 5 stars for how much it shook me up and affected me, but technically, this would be at a recommendation rating of probably 1 star, unless you are "into this sort of thing" and a fan of Solondz work but from a different angle/director.

Also, this is labeled as a comedy and I believe that anyone that laughs at this film is lkely a sadist. There is nothing funny here, it is all pretty real and unsettling at times.