Burning Man
Burning Man
| 10 September 2011 (USA)
Burning Man Trailers

An English chef with a chic restaurant on Bondi Beach trying to put his life and his relationship with his son back on track while surrounded by women.

Reviews
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Michael Ledo The film starts off with Tom (Matthew Goode) masturbating while looking at a naked girl (Rachel Griffiths) dressed as a nurse. We then see him bleeding out from an auto accident and the 90 minutes later we are back to where we started with a seriously disjointed film with flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks. Not too terribly hard to keep up, it just didn't add anything to the film. We find out Tom is a successful chef whose wife Sarah (Bojana Novakovic) has died from cancer, but is alive for half the picture. They have a son Oscar (Jack Heanly) and Aunt Karen (Essie Davis), who wants to help out while Tom grieves and has sex with his therapist and then later we see him meet her for the first time.The film is about Tom dealing with grief in his own disjointed way.Guide: F-word, sex, nudity.
The_late_Buddy_Ryan We didn't stick around to find out what was eating Jessica Chastain in "Eleanor Rigby," but in "Burning Man," the big reveal isn't delayed too long, and the opening barrage of short, very intense, non-sequential flashbacks—a car crash, a dreary sex scene, a rugby game colliding with a kid's birthday cake—really got our attention. These memories belong to Tom Keaton (Matthew Goode), a tightly wrapped Sydney chef who's blocked out the unbearable crucial fact of his life, so it takes awhile to figure out what's really going on. Even before that though, we were riveted. Despite its tricky, timeshifting structure, the film's perfectly paced, and after the storyline levels out, "Burning Man" gets to the heart of things in an affecting, unsentimental way. Great cast — good work by MG and lovely Bojana Novakovic (Frank Gallagher's latest paramour on "Shameless"!); too bad Rachel Griffiths was only available for a day's shooting, or so it seems. This one reminded me of another Aussie film, "Adore," which also could have come off as gimmicky and contrived but had real dramatic impact. "Burning Man" provides a fine emotional workout, though there are a couple of rowdy comic scenes as well—including an haute cuisine version of the french toast bit from "Road Trip." Great soundtrack ("ethereal singing," the CC calls it) by Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance fame.
Binoy Santhakumar (bonzybino) "Burning Man" is one movie which can be tagged under Art-house. Stories about grieving men ain't that novel nowadays, yet Burning Man slaps at the very thought of giving us yet another clichéd piece, this one with all its brilliance is indeed refreshing a watch for the story it deals with.The drama which unfolds in reverse chronological order - just like in "memento" - goes deep into the lives of the characters, all shown so roughly with incoherent fragments from the story that we feel like watching digged out incidents from the protagonist's memory. It did irk me at first, and i really had to be patient to get the hang of it. Its awfully slow at times that you would start hating it or, the worse, might stop watching it just like my cousin :D - I hate to stall in between. After I finished watching the movie, was amazed by the simplicity of the plot, which was fed to the viewer in a rather unconventional but powerful manner.The pain the characters go through was brilliantly acted and shot. With some absorbing performances - my first Mathew Goode movie and am already a fan - amazing locale and soulful background score, this drama easily gets into my top Art-House Movies list - stressing on the term "Art house", for it might not be enjoyable outing for all. A good watch for serious movie buffs. 7/10
gurubesar Like a normal British movies, the story is not very clear. The story is jumping between reality and imagination or based on the memory of the chef. You really have to concentrate to understand the story line. Even then you still may not be able to follow it.The actor and actresses are not to blame. They are very convincing in playing their part, but having a good actor/actress will not help to make the story believable if you can not follow it. The grieving husband act is very good.... but you have to watch the movie until the end before you know what is he grieving about....If you are looking for something to pass your time lightly, forget this movie. This one is not something that you can enjoy without much thinking and definitely not to pass the time in blissful enjoyment.....