The Burning Boy (2001) User Reviews

An unpredictable and stunning film.

[aretel · 7/10 · 9 March 2014]

This short film opens, like many gay themed films, with two young boys, Ben (Cameron Ford) and Chill (Josh Roberts), horsing around in a swimming pool where it is revealed that Ben has a secrete attraction for Chill. Conversation ensues between the two boys and it is it is clearly defined that Chill is straight as he is always talking about girls to the annoyance of Ben. When Ben's secrete is exposed while the two boys are alone in a shed, the unpredictable and unthinkable happens.

This film is clearly a tragedy and although the film is very well written and produced, it clearly leaves the audience with unresolved issues and longing for answers which aren't clearly identifiable. Kieran Galvin clearly knows where he wants to take this film and he does this very effectively by casting two talented young actors who are able to take their characters into great depths. The compassion Chill shows towards Ben is moving and surprisingly empathetic. However Ben's reaction to Chill's compassion has a very different effect and results in a tragic ending for both boys.

This film is very well done, and although the ending isn't clearly defined, which is why I gave it a 7/10, the plot is compelling and very unpredictable. A must see short film

An opportunity wasted/cut short?

[Havan_IronOak · 8/10 · 20 January 2002]

I'm not sure why this film had to take the turn it did. Finding an understanding friend is probably every closeted teenager's fantasy and yet, when the straight boy in this story turns out to be understanding and open this film takes a turn toward tragedy.

Perhaps I'm just a hopeless romantic. I'm just not sure why so many filmmakers feel the need to keep making tragic stories. Perhaps its because they are still working out their inner demons. But, I found these characters interesting and charming and would have much rather seen what would develop if the story had been allowed to follow a more natural (if undoubtably longer) story-line.

I hope that the filmmaker keeps working and that his next picture is both longer and lighter.

about solitude

[Kirpianuscus · 25 August 2016]

or about friendship, refuge, need of the other and impossibility to escape from yourself. the viewer decides the right interpretation. important is only the inspired manner to say the story. two young men. a pool. and the dialogues. the truth. the accident. and the run. the last part remains admirable example of the translation in image of deep sadness, hopeless isolation. its romanticism seems be destroy by the tragic end. but , more than the solution of director, it is the best manner to propose the message. different by heterosexual romantic films - and this is a good thing- the gay movies, especially the short films, are not exactly faithful adaptation of the fairy tales in which the wedding must be the pink answer to entire story.because the social conditions, in every historical period, impose a specific crisis in this form of love. this is the most important virtue of The Burning Boy. a form of cold, precise realism who defines the essence of a bitter form of solitude.