source: Burning Man: The Musical

This film was set to be a fun, potentially cliche, diverse, creative and welcoming musical representation of the annual Burning Man gathering in the Black Rock Desert. Following the release of the original 2015 trailer my hopes were high. What we were instead presented with was an uninspired, formulaic and insulting musical with songs that sounded like they were produced underwater. Not to mention they were unpalatable radio pop versions of the original songs from the 2015 trailer. Painfully tedious to endure. The cast, ordinary and uninteresting people who appear lifeless on the screen. Not fabulous actors, not fabulous singers. Each character portrayed an often offensive and depreciatory version of some Burning Man cliche. The veteran burner, the Tech CEO, the virgin. Each character was at best an inaccurate representation of Burning Man culture and and frankly made the event look like a drug fueled, wealthy elitist orgy in the desert. This film disparaged the culture, arts, music, tradition and values that the Burning Man community upholds and defends. The relentless visual effects made me sick. They succeeded only in obviously trying to hide their poor quality sets with an even worse color filter over the screen the entire film. The clear lack of diversity both in music and lyrics between the songs was aggravating. The nonexistent storyline marginalized and embarrassed entire populations of upstanding and good citizens of Black Rock City. To them, this film owes an apology. Beyond that, the dialogue was completely unbelievable, and the content of the film painted a picture of the Burning Man gathering so insulting to the organization and every participant and creator. To release this film for profit was ludicrous and disrespectful and criminal.

Pros: Diverse and talented cast that do their absolute best with the material provided, and they seem to be having fun. Cons: Pretty much everything else from a film-making standpoint. Every character is pushed too far to the caricature level. A little goofiness and comic relief can be fine, but it is overdone for cheap laughs here. The spinning camera angles during conversations was nauseating. The plot is supposed to be about Molly finding herself, but I feel like I know next to nothing about her after the movie is over. There needed to be more time developing her character before going to Burning Man so we could see an actual transformation. It seemed odd to make Molly a veteran Burner, when it would have been so much more interesting to see Burning Man from the eyes of a virgin Burner. I thought the use of words flying around on screen to introduce characters, as opposed to filming something, was all-in-all lazy. It's a visual medium. Show, don't tell. The sets and props are very poor and lackluster. Burning Man is such a unique environment. It would have been nice to see more representation of the playa than just a few booths behind the same multi-colored curtains. It feels claustrophobic. Considering some of the epic art displays, it was also a bit disappointing that the prop that seemed to have the most effort put into it was the tiny autonomous car. The music and lyrics at their best gave me earworms. I liked the repeated "What have you heard about Burning Man?" the first few times, but it is overused in practically every song. The songs all feel very similar, and don't try to do anything all that unique or daring. This is supposed to be a movie about one of the largest creative festivals in the world, but I feel like I just listened to someone's kitchen table demo tape. Also, this film needs a seizure warning for some of the visual effects at the beginning.

"Burning Man: The Musical" somehow manages to touch on every single grain of Playa dust that makes Burning Man the phenomenon that it is. The film captures the Burn's ridiculousness, absurdity, and hypocrisy, as well as its community, color, and creativity. Longtime Burners will relish the references, but even audiences who have never been to Black Rock Desert will be captivated by the storylines and fall in love with characters like Hazel the Hippie (who sees all the burns of the past through rose colored 1960s-style sunglasses...and a lot of smoke), Chad (the hopeless polyamorist), and Molly, who is struggling to reconcile her former "SparklePony" persona with becoming a responsible human being. And then there's Bill the Billionaire: an Elon Musk on steroids and every bit as entertaining as that sounds. So many lines had me laughing out loud. The visuals are like a blast of hallucinogenics, and the soundtrack is a series of fun earworms performed by a cast overflowing with talent. What a great trip!

I've been following this project since the YouTube trailer that was posted in 2015. With high hopes I settled into streaming the 2021 full-length musical and within minutes quickly realized I was in for 90 minutes of utter disappointment. Every aspect of this production technically and creatively was a flop. From mediocre singing, overuse of low quality and distracting special effects, and a script that may as well have been written by a lame AI bot trained by mainstream clickbait articles about Burning Man (shirtcocker, sparkle pony, tech CEO, orgy dome), this was a huge bummer and honestly a waste of resources. After seeing the 2015 trailer, I was fully prepared for an inaccurate stereotypical representation of the BM event, but at least it looked fun? I'm all for a silly musical that doesn't take itself too seriously, but the final product was cringeworthy and exhausting. I was excited for this, but in place of high quality singing and clever songs, we got a watered down mess filled with low quality audio, jokes that didn't land, and worse versions of the songs from the 2015 trailer. Beyond the inaccurate cliches that are representative of the Burning Man event, this project that has been in development for 6 years was just plain boring. The cast and crew had a chance to make something funny, endearing, and creative, and instead we were left with a bad taste in our mouth and 90 minutes of our lives we will never get back. Shame on all those involved.

Burning Man: The Musical