Press Reviews

• Variety | show/hide snippet

  ''BURNING MAN'' SIZZLING
  Burning Man: The Burning Sensation (documentary, color, no rating, 1:13)
  By Todd McCarthy, Daily Variety Chief Film Critic

  SANTA BARBARA (Variety) - An amazing and privileged inside look at one of the few certifiable counterculture events of this thoroughly commercialized age, ``Burning Man: The Burning Sensation'' is a knockout documentary with a renegade personality ideally suited to its anarchic subject matter.

  Bound to excite the young and the reckless just as it gives respectable citizens pause, Alex Nohe's dynamic account of the annual art/lifestyle bacchanal in the middle of the Nevada desert has the potential to become a hot item on the specialized circuit, especially in campus towns and big-city alternative theaters; in its present cut, it's too raunchy for any mainstream cable outlet.

• the Hollywood Reporter | show/hide snippet

  Not the first or last film/TV project about the yearly Burning Man gathering in northern Nevada's Black Rock Desert, this accomplished and invigorating documentary by debut filmmaker Alex Nohe is both strengthened and hindered by its agenda, which is to approach the wild weeklong event as a one-of-a-kind art happening.

• Santa Cruz Good Times | show/hide snippet

  Nothing quite tops witnessing a penis firework ejaculate into full sparkle. In the end we’re all the better for it. But don’t get out that pack of smokes just yet. It’s best to bask in the afterglow that is Burning Man–The Burning Sensation, a telling documentary about the counter-cultural phenomenon called Burning Man.
  Every year, thousands of vision questers kiss the consumer world on its backside and head to the Black Rock Desert in “Nowheresville,” California, where they form a temporary colony in the hopes of discovering spiritual enlightenment, and allow their inner wild person to be totally free. Radical self-reliance and maximum self-expression is the key to Burning Man and although it smacks of a dirt-poor Vegas on acid trip, it has become a stomping ground for both men and women willing to venture into the land of uninhibitedness. Here, on the desert floor, one’s deepest rebirth can happen–and in any way one sees fit. By week’s end, a climactic event has thousands gathered to watch the burning of a 50-foot wooden man.
  This uber bohemian orgasmic soiree comes to vivid life in Alex Nohe’s 75-minute creative work. Nohe, camera in tow, captures many highlights of the Burning Man event in a lush exhibition that is not easily forgotten. In his director’s statement, he calls Burning Man “a form of art unto itself,” and “unlike sculpture, painting, or film, Burning Man is interactive, participatory–it’s not something you watch, it’s something you do, It’s a place of fantasy and abandonment.” Reckless abandonment, that is. You’ve got your Woodpussy rocket and the fire machines of Seemen in one camp, the info-grabbing “Nebulous Entity” (aliens are out there) in another, and a gal named Dea Million prepping to wed America (yes, the country) in a lavish ceremony. And in between, Nohe’s camera takes you into virtually every hook and cranny of the Burning Man retreat–things like nude mud baths and a radio-free Burning Man (the station K-FUK), to the blazing demise of a stuffed horse whose breathing life found him galloping along cameras in the film Lawrence of Arabia. The topless bike parade isn’t that bad either.
  Co-founder Larry Harvey erected the event with his friend Jerry James after Harvey’s divorce. Harvey suggested they “burn a man,” a wooden thing about 8-feet tall. It happened during the summer equinox in 1986. What did the man symbolize? His father? His relationship? Himself? Perhaps all those things. Regardless, it became transcendent and by using fire as a powerful tool, the two friends decided to repeat the event every year as a personal holiday and invited anyone who wanted to join. Four years later, they were in the Black Rock Desert, 90 miles from Reno. Ten years ago, the event drew in more than 2,000 people. It’s doubled every year since. No money is exchanged in the event–barter is totally encouraged.
  Nohe captures Harvey in footage away from the camp, a seemingly simple yet disconnected creature–at least from society–he professes things like “you are temporary” and expounds upon Burning Man’s mystic, where “everyone becomes the same; your cultural mask is stripped away.”
  The unpredictable terrain is not lost on Nohe’s creation either. The 107-degree heat is nature’s toughest companion and winds in the area can gust well over 100 mph.
  However, Nohe has a capable hand. He’s able to weave together an intriguing story, capturing both the heart and brawn of Burning Man. He successfully balances the day and night action at the camp with a series of interviews with Harvey, artist/writer/performer Stephen Raspa, Burning Man site manager Will Roger, Crimson Rose, the administrative manager of Naked Fire Goddess, and many others. While the production quality of the piece doesn’t live up to that of, say, The Cockettes, the vivid documentary that wowed the recent Santa Cruz Film Festival, it’s not something that sinks the film. There’s just too much to be fascinated by here.
  By the time the finale rolls around–the highly anticipated burning of the “Man”–Nohe has already won you over. You’re no longer just the spectator in the theater. You have somehow become emotionally drawn into the experience on screen.
  The bottom line? It totally rises to the occasion.