ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.

LouieInLove People are different, as is this film. Some won't like it, others will get it almost immediately as it's designed to extract from an emotional pathway some simply don't have. Now that may sound like pretentious crap, hell! It sounds like pretentious crap to me & I'm writing it. Nevertheless, I stick by it.Having lost a partner (girlfriend / road accident) I come from a place of experience when discussing life cut-short. Nevertheless, I would never claim to know anything, as each individual case is different, albeit similar.The film manages to beautifully weave the chaos of this kind of loss into a functioning narrative, which is damn near impossible. Sitting watching it I got that deep sense of unease, the visceral coil round the oesophagus which is/was my physical reaction to emotional distress. My point being, the film does its job. I found it both difficult & perversely soothing.The human mind is incredibly complex. Our emotions are tied to reality with thin thread & we adapt to almost any distress.

toph61 Much as some cannot understand how this film received a high rating I cannot understand how some have given this a low rating. The film was excellent. True it started with a lot of dis-jointed flash scenes of varying tenses and it did take a little while to get one's bearings. So much so that I did consider leaving it. How glad I was that I chose to persevere. After about 10 or 15 mins the whole thing became clear and from then on the film was riveting. It was gripping, emotionally provocative and real. Music was good and acting excellent but most of all the story was real and touching. It requires a small degree of concentration and is not something to be passively entertained by but notwithstanding this it is not complex or complicated and is easy enough to follow once your in. It's essence is its references to our own emotions which we will all see and relate to as the story explores the common manifestations of grief. Great film.

webmaster-3017 Burning Man is a different film that goes the route not taken. It is works in the same manner of films similar to Memento. It requires the audience to invest into the film and with the effect of constantly solving a complicated life puzzle. It is an unique experience that will stay in your memory for a good while. It is a essentially at its core a film about dealing with loss, moving on, grieve, the love of your life, cancer and the aftermath of a tragedy. It is what you call a smart film that let the audience work it out for themselves. The film also constantly uses sex as a symbol, motif, and metaphor and to depict the passion with the relationships. Shot in the backdrop of Bondi Beach in Sydney, the location is almost unrecognisable and the cinematography is mostly excellent. Although the film is shot and edited in a creative manner, meaning that nothing happens coherent and the director is clearly playing with time and memory, it is exactly this aspect that the film fails to connect with the audience and ultimately feel for the characters deep involved in their respective situations. Still, for an Australian film, these is an admirable effort and along with a wonderful yet conflicted performance from British import Matthew Goode and the screen stealing beauty in Bojana Novakovic. Although I have not since any of director Jonathan Teplitzky's previous works, with Burning Man, one can only say that this man is filled with potential.All in all, The Burning Man is not a film for everyone; it can be am torture to sit through and also rewarding at the same time. In essence it is very much an independent film, but for what it is worth, The Burning Man is a fine effort and deserves some much needed credit for the Australian Film Industry… Neo rates it 7/10www.thehkneo.com