By 
Perennial Glasgow favourite Jonas Chernick returns again with his fourth entry into the festival, following last year’s The End of Sex. This time teaming up with writing partner Diana Frances, and directed by The End of Sex’s Sean Garrity, The Burning Season is a romantic drama told in reverse. It’s an inspired choice, evoking the style of Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible or Christopher Nolan‘s Memento. Bolstered by great chemistry between Chernick and co-star Sara Canning, The Burning Season is an intricately told tale of the power of secrets, and the cost of silence.
We Begin At The End
When we first meet JB (Chernick) he is at his wedding, about to get married. All is not well, however. The arrival of friends Alena (Canning) and her husband Tom (Joe Pingue) send JB spiralling. After an ill-advised attempt to self-medicate with cocaine, JB makes a fool of himself both during the ceremony and the after party, ending in the reveal of an affair that has been going on for at least a year.
This is not the end of the story, but the beginning. Garrity, Chernick, and Frances take us back in time, each chapter (beginning with seven and drawing down to a prologue) revealing new details about the relationship between Alena and JB, with events reverse engineered to provide pleasing foreshadowing for what comes later (or earlier, as the case may be). A scene in chapter 6 shows Alena surprising JB with candles and a plate of mac’ and cheese. There is clearly a context here, an in-joke shared between two people who know each other well. Throughout the course of The Burning Season the viewer will get to experience the context in (reverse) real time.
source: Glasgow Film Festival
There are plenty of breadcrumbs here in the form of both actions and dialogue between the couple, which hint at an inner world and – perhaps more importantly – a dark secret they share, that has bound them together. JB runs a lakeside retreat with his girlfriend Poppy (Tanisha Thammavongsa), to which Alena and her oblivious husband Tom keep returning every summer. There are suggestions something happened at the retreat many years ago, something which compels Alena to keep returning. Perhaps it’s JB, but perhaps it’s something else. The thrill in The Burning Season is watching all of these intricate layers unfold before you; the viewer will be rewarded for careful attention to details.
JB & Alena
There may be enough intrigue here to carry a viewer’s interest, but what makes The Burning Season stand out is the chemistry between Chernick and Canning. This is important because the tension between JB and Alena is what drives this movie. Forced to live a lie to their respective spouses, JB and Alena both crackle with guilt, anger, and lust. Scenes between them sometimes feel supercharged as they navigate their feelings for one another while the danger of being caught lurks ever present in the background. Meals between the two couples are fraught with tension as mind games are played, and a deep-seated sadness pervades JB at every turn – he is an alcoholic and Chernick captures his slide into substance abuse well – which is revealed in time.
Interesting, too, is the way the intimacy between JB and Alena plays out. What might easily have been an erotic thriller, with two people drawing dangerously closer to one another, unable to resist, becomes much more naturalistic in Garrity’s camera, and curiously unsexy at times.
source: Glasgow Film Festival
As each chapter unfolds and more is revealed about the relationship between Alena and JB, the viewer comes to understand them and their situation well. It’s a tricky thing to pull off because we begin inside a wedding drama for which we have no context, and thus no way to connect to the characters or their situation. It’s confusing and, in truth, slightly off-putting at first but continued viewing will reward a patient audience. The ending too leaves something to be desired, with threads left hanging loose. Perhaps this was the intention, however. Perhaps, like real-life trauma, stories don’t have a neat beginning, middle, and end, but are left painfully open-ended.
Conclusion
The Burning Season is an intricately told story of secrets, guilt, and lust, anchored by great chemistry between its co-stars, and a satisfying script that reveals more secrets as each chapter unfolds. The ending is perhaps a little too abrupt and clumsy, failing to find a decent denouement to round off its story, but this isn’t enough to detract from a solid drama.
The Burning Season screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival 2024.
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