AFI

Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock

 (Documentary)

By JOHN ANDERSON

A Gone Off Deep production. Produced by Michael S. Wilson. Co-producer, William Haskins. Directed, edited by Damon Brown.
 

As previous Burning Man films have done, "Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock" focuses on a handful of artists, their preparations for the Burning Man event, and their subsequent experience. Pic is brisk, funny and insightful enough to have a vigorous life on the festival circuit, with specialized play and cable sales are also indicated. The paradox, however, is that the core group of at least 35,000 who regularly attend this art-in-the-desert celebration may not want the film to be successful, since that would draw more people to an event that the movie shows is becoming more and more fragile.

Less than 20 years old, Burning Man has already become an institution -- a kind of tribal gathering and arts installation that materializes like Brigadoon in Nevada's Black Rock desert every Labor Day weekend, and is named after the towering wooden figure set alight on the final day of the fest.

Most of the interviewees in the film hew close to the Burning Man party line of coming to the desert for freedom of artistic expression.

But documaker Damon Brown also notes that there's trouble in this particular paradise. The popularity of Burning Man threatens its existence, with more and more people coming, and presumably fewer possessing the "respect and freedom" ethos on which the event was founded. Guards patrol the perimeter of the 400-square-mile expanse to prevent unpaid access. And for Manhattan sculptor/bartender Rafael Santiago, trying to erect a papier-mache nude in the sand, bureaucracy has reared its ugly head. "I have to fill out a form," he gripes, "to dig a hole."

Problems aside, the filmmaking is often exhilarating. Although the docu is shot on DV cam, Brown and d.p. Rob Van Alkemade use a variety of textures that are not just aesthetically apt but make shifts between events and time frames simple to follow.

The score is superb: Van Alkemade has constructed a soundtrack that marries techno to Delta blues-influenced slide guitar, with the effects ranging from unexpected melancholy to outright giddiness.

Camera (color, DV cam), Rob Van Alkemade; music, Allen Robertson; sound, Bill Henry; associate producer, Andie Grace. Reviewed at AFI Film Festival, Los Angeles, Nov. 5, 2005. Running time: 105 MIN.