The Burning Man Festival
(Next Gen)
by Amanda Nash
Since no one on the Lollipop staff actually attended The Burning Man Festival, I guess I scored this video as The Person Most Kicking Herself for Not Having Gone. And I am: I’ve been kicking myself about not going for so many years that by now I’d fit in quite nicely with the contortionists who appear there. But that wouldn’t distinguish me at Burning Man; contortionism is kind of a yawner compared to most of the stuff that goes on there. There’s a nice sampling of some such stuff in this video by Joe Winston. Naw, it doesn’t feel like you’re there, but probably the only way to simulate that would be to crawl inside a microwave oven with a pile of metal shavings and power that baby up.
Now in its tenth year, Burning Man started out as Larry Harvey’s Pagan ritual to heal a broken heart on San Francisco’s Baker Beach. Six years ago it relocated to Nevada (now in the Black Rock Desert near Reno) and has been lengthened to take up the full Labor Day weekend. Harvey speaks a bit on film about how the festival came to be, but as eloquent as he is, I agree with him when he says, “the real story is in the act itself – in the experience; that’s what this is all about.
“Superlatives always seem to apply when people talk about Burning Man: According to the attendees, it is always all you could have hoped for, better than you could ever have expected, more wild and crazy and free and bizarre than you could imagine, impossibly and disarmingly visionary, etc., etc. How could a mere video live up to the actuality? It can’t. It’s kind of like expecting a tin full of sand to live up to your experience of the beach. But it’s a perfectly functional take on the experience. Not having been there – dammit! – I can’t complain about what they left out, and I’m sure there’s plenty. But I give them credit for not only trying to capture the outta-controlness of the event but also throwing in the early morning lulls. The interviews reflect the prevalence of brainy San Francisco art-geeks, but the cameras don’t shy away from the meandering self-important musicians or the clueless gals from Reno who seemingly just wandered in. [It would be great to be able to say that the latter will never be the same again, but in their exit interview they seem just as clueless as they did going in.]
From the opening credits, including a Residents-like eyeball with a screw in it and the caption “OW MYEYE Productions,” right down to the interview at the end with the guy who cleans and carts away the portable toilets, the film is predictably unpredictable. After a mildly zany drive with our hosts and a chaotic conversation with a smug sentry at the gate, we journey across the desert into the enclave that is Burning Man. Following a slow segment on pitching the tent, we finally get to wander through the growing tent city, visiting Art Car Kamp, where we meet the automotive Mac the Daredevil Fin Mobile, Ripper the Friendly Shark, Love 23, a “technologically advanced bug-freezing device,” and a one-man banana car. There’s the desert Bowl-a-Rama, a shooting range with a fleet of postal workers honing their skills, a huge people-pyramid, and the Bitche Witches Niche, where revelers are “exacting revenge for the crimes of the Salem burnings 200 years ago.” Brief chats with some of the participants reveal a high level of intelligence and creativity, but no shortage of self-satisfaction. When participants say it’s “a Rainbow Gathering for bad people” or a “prototype for a utopian society” [yeah, for four days – I hate to imagine what it would look like after a month], it’s very clear that they’re pretty darned proud of themselves for being there. Am I just jealous? Probably so.
Peculiar looking vehicles streak through every scene, as do thousands of semi-naked, painted bodies. The raising of the four-story-high neon & wood man which gives the event its title is surprisingly powerful. And this is not the only piece of art which is built to burn; it seems nearly all of the weekend’s creations will play host to some kind of fireworks. As the sun goes down it begins to feel really wild: there’s a Shirts vs. Skins flaming rugby game, played with some inscrutable flaming object; a truly inspired electric violin player on top of a camper; and, eventually, the piece de resistance itself, the burning of The Man. Using mere words to describe a mere video of the event, I’m sure I can’t impress upon you just how moving this act is, but even on video, it is; take my word for it. It is perhaps no small coincidence that during this short four-day period, the festival is visited by a dramatic thunderstorm and a perfect rainbow. When one participant described it as an “all-man show,” perhaps that was an understatement.
Okay. I know you’re dying to hear about the portable toilet guy. Did he think the participants were freaky? “No, everybody’s real friendly. Ya gotta like these guys; everybody out here’s just doing their own thing.” And as for his own role, well, “It pays the mortgage. Just don’t lick your fingers.”
(www.nextgen-video.com)
