Burning Sands - Absurd Foundations
Thoughts On: Burning Sands (2017)
A group of young students desperate to join a fraternity attempt to endure violent hazing.
I can't lie, I flashed a look at the poster and synopsis of this film and saw "student", "Zurich" and "hell"; I thought, why not try a Swiss film, this looks interesting. I'm an idiot. Burning Sands, as I quickly found out, is an American film about fraternities and hazing. I have always found depictions of American colleges and unis on film quite repulsive; I never quite understood the strict association of school and animalism. Burning Sands deals with this stereotypical vision of higher education in America, bringing some gravitas to the subject with its problematisation of the violence and promotion of absurd behaviour associated with the indoctrination into fraternities. In general I find this aspect of American culture to be a bizarre extension of just how unashamedly extra and exuberant (in comparison to the more miserable and muted British culture I am familiar with) it is more commonly acceptable to be there. In such, one is made to feel, as the narrative of Burning Sands develops, an extreme desperation for inclusion and friendship among these college kids. They are made to physically and existentially suffer for a promise of brotherhood that is revealed to be a contrivance of foundations set in sand - as the title of the film suggests. The aspect of the film I found most valuable was the off-screen presence of our main character's dad. Through our main character's rejection, and then eventual acceptance, of his father's attempts to communicate with him, it is made clear that some nonsense friendship and brotherhood based primarily on sex and alcohol formed in school is far less important than family. The brotherhood our characters strive to be apart of has its pretentious values that it fails to uphold or represent with any quality while family - especially if it is stable and non-toxic - is a given responsibility far more deserving of our suffering. Not much more needs to be said about Burning Sands; it is fairly structured, shot and acted and makes quite a pressing statement on hazing. Nothing particularly special, but not a bad film at all.
