She Wanted To Be Burnt

Ruth Paxton has created a nightmarish slightly Lynchian offering. This is experimental but no less dramatic or engaging for it.

It’s not clear what has happened but a young half-naked woman (Kim Chapman) wakes up to find out that something bad might have occured the night before... or did it? There are flashbacks that seem to reveal alcohol, sex and something else. Was it rape? Was she a victim of crime or is it she who has committed one? Was there a body floating face down in a bath tub or is that part of a dream?

It’s surreal, dreamlike and frightening as the victim/perpetrator goes deeply inside her own conscience and consciousness. Her innocent childhood seems to come and taunt her as she both retreats from and embraces the experience at the same time.

The film is quite daring by hinting that she may have chosen this fate for herself – that she may have wanted the pain she is experiencing but nothing is here is set clearly in stone. The whole thing could be a drug fueled come-down but whatever the reality behind it, it’s a bold, disturbing and powerful montage of being inside someone’s messed up head.