Review of The Burning Plain (2008) by Breanna M — 31 May 2009

Anhyone familiar with mind and style of Guillermo Arriage know to expect many storylines spanning multiple locales over quite a period of time. What marks Arriaga as a visionary is that he carried the ability to continually use the same style of storytelling, yet manages to give you something completely different from his previous work.

With The Burning Plain, this territory is once gain revisited. Our characters are very conflicted, and in light, haunted figures. We have Mariana, a 16-year old girl having an interracial relationship with the son of her mother's adulterous counterpart.Then there is Sylvia, a woman in Portland engaging in strange sexual encounters who obviously shows she has something inside that tearing her apart emotionally. Gina and Nick continue the cycle, playing the part of two adulturous lovers who find a common bond in the accpetance of their flaws. Our stories are rounded up with Maria, a young girl whose father has just been the victim of a plane crash, and now on a quest to find a very important figure in his life.

The performances in this picture are nothing short of phenomenal. Each actor and acrress embodies their misery, their darkness and their conflicts with a true sense of talent, bringing out the emotion necessary to allow you to connect with them throughout their scripted journey. Arriaga has a touch for keeping things mysterious. He knows what to reveal and when to reveal it, leaving you with valueable questions and pondering where the plot will go. The icing on the cake is that he always manages to leave you wondering until the conclusion is reached, and when you experience this climax, the revalations will amaze you.

Theron, Basinger, De Almeida, Yazpik, Pardo and Lawrence complete a flawless cast, whom were all particularly hand-selcted by Arriaga himself. His characters are very reall people, who still carry the qualities of fictionalstorytelling. You know they don't exist, but in truth, they appear on-screen as truly real personas. Although Arriaga's stories are fictional, they feel as real as ever. Heart and soul is poured out into every moment of this 111 ninute film that never slows itself down, or walks into a hole of boredom. The editing is as precise as it can be, leaving the viewer wanting to know more. Accompanied by a haunting score by the phenomenal Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, all the peices of the puzzle fit like a gem.

At the AFI Dallas Film Festival in March, Arriaga stated that his job as a writer is not to extend his plot, but to shorten it to the right amount of time. This time he speaks of is a valueable essence to the gorgeous success of this picture, and by the end, you will truly feel its power.