The Man Will Burn

The directors provide a remarkable window into the backstage operations of the event. .... Directors Noujaim and Gandhi are not out to critique Burning Man, or to celebrate it either. The lushness of the cinematography—with its beautiful people, landscapes, improbable sculptures, impractical machines and galaxy of light and dust—is as voluptuous as the festival itself.

The Man Will Burn gives an effective overview of Burning Man, a festival that’s misunderstood by many, while examining how its spirit of creativity and community struggles against the reality of the 2020s.

There’s an edit of The Man Will Burn that would be shorter, tighter and perhaps more sensationalistic, and one that would be longer, richer and more complex, but instead we get an in-between series that’s fun, shallow and, finally, bland in a way Burning Man has always tried to avoid becoming.