Review of The Burning Plain (2008) by Assem Z — 10 Apr 2009

I actually kind of liked this movie. It gives you a very simplistic picture of life: Fuck. Ponder death. Fuck somebody else. Ponder death. Very lacanian.

On to oversimplifications: Every woman in this movie is unhappy; every single one of them, no matter how old. Kim Basinger is unhappy with her husband and four kids so she has an affair with some tan Mexican guy. Charlize Theron is unhappy because a married man she's having an affair with won't leave his wife for her so she figures she'll just fuck every two-legged human animal within a 200-mile radius (see, I'm giving her credit!). The scene at the very beginning of the movie when she's in bed with the American guy who works at her restaurant is brilliant because she looks so into the act that she might have as well been watching TV (and having a much better time doing it).

Moreover, we can never have too many vouyeristic movies, can we? Everybody follows everybody else in this movie. For instance, while Charlize Theron is trapped in the middle of a Mexican-American sandwich, some nice Mexican guy who follows her drives her back home and of course she invites him over for a drink. Sadly, he doesn't want to fuck her and is not very interested in the drink, so she ponders death.

Anyhow, the movie has some nice would-be-artistic shots of flying birds, a woman standing at the top of a cliff, waves crashing against the shore, a man gazing at the horizon, presumably pondering the meaning of life. Very Bergman-esque. I buy them. (Quite a few people in the movie speak Spanish? but too bad nobody speaks Norwegian.).