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Confessions Of A Burning Man

2004, Movie, NR, 80 mins

Confessions Of A Burning Man: Review

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"I think Burning Man is the '60s done right," opines a blissed-out resident of Black Rock City, Nev., which for less than one week every year becomes the state's third-largest metropolis. The rest of the year it's a deserted playa — a dry lakebed — ringed by mountains and baking in the sun until the next Burning Man festival draws upwards of 25,000 pilgrims in search of art, fun and a sense of alternative community. The four first-time pilgrims used by directors Paul Burnett and Unsu Lee to represent Burning Man participants represent a striking range of age, race and economic class — a larger range than the festival itself draws, to judge by the overwhelming young white people cavorting in the background of shots. Restless New York-born taxi driver Michael Winaker, who appears to have 10 years on the others, claims he just wants to meet some interesting people, later revealing a deep vein of heartache beneath his cynical veneer. Actress Samantha Weaver, of Pacific Heights, San Francisco, intends to build a labyrinth in the desert; her childhood best friend, Anna Getty — an heir to the Getty Oil fortune — is looking for spiritual direction. And African-American filmmaker Mike Epps (Straight Outta Hunters Point) wants to exorcise a criminal past that compromises his vision of his future as a husband, father and law-abiding citizen. Braving dust storms, makeshift showers and the myriad petty indignities of tent living, they all find niches in the freewheeling carnival of impromptu parties, spontaneous art- and music-related events and general goofiness. Weaver adopts the nickname "Lady Red" and works on her mystic maze; Anna, whose arrival by private plane seems out of sync with the festival's roughing-it ethos but apparently engenders no ill will, tags along. The sharp-tongued Winaker starts a one-man golf-cart taxi service, ferrying revelers around Black Rock City, and Epps drifts around the periphery, soaking up attitudes he hopes to take back to the hood. Like Alex Nohe's 2002 THE BURNING SENSATION, Burnett and Lee's graceful, sympathetic documentary focuses on participants who embody Burning Man's ideals without being blind to the opportunists and party animals it inevitably attracts. The whiny Getty is the film's weak link; her poor-little-rich-girl complaints and bubble-headed declarations — I'm all about light now" — suggest that her willingness to help produce the film may have outweighed the fact that she's a self-pitying bore. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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