FilmFemme

When I was in high school I remember trying to go see Amores Perros (written by Guillermo Arriaga) at the cheap theatre near my school with two of my girl friends.  But after the very opening scene that involved bleeding dogs, we had to leave and we ended up seeing Blow instead.  It’s not a decision I regret, but at this point, nearly 10 years later, I’ve still only seen one of his films and that was 21 Grams  (he also just wrote this, like Amores Perros it was directed by Alejandro Inarritu)which I thought was OK but not brilliant.  Now that I’ve seen The Burning Plain, I’m even more suspect of his other films.

The opening of The Burning Plain is similarly uncomfortable with a haggard and naked Sylvia (Charlize Theron) sucking deeply on a cigarette and kicking John (John Corbett) out of her room in the small hours of the morning.  Frigid and blank, Sylvia’s character is no mystery and when we shortly find out that her lover is also her employee at an upscale restaurant in addition to being married to another woman, Sylvia’s unfeeling attitude towards him is not a surprise.  But just as the drama is ramping up in this dreary Portland debauchery, we’re transported to New Mexico where an adulterous couple has been burned alive in a mobile home, leaving their children to pick up the pieces.  Without giving anything away, these two stories eventually catch up to each other and weave together.  

Actually, the way in which they weave together, and the way in which I feel compelled to not give anything away, is one of the most irritating things about the film.  It seems to set itself up to be some sort of mystery, when to me the atmosphere, characters and storyline were much more those of a penetrating drama.  In this instance, the details being unnecessarily confusing becomes frustrating rather than rewarding.  When things are finally revealed and connections made, it feels like the filmmaker is looking directly at you and asking “Bet you didn’t see THAT ONE coming!” when, if you’ve ever, you know, seen a movie before, you most definitely DID see it coming. 

As a for instance, oh that’s so weird that she doesn’t want him to touch her boob I bet she had cancer and then 30 minutes later “I had cancer” comes out or her mouth and you wish you were the one who had cancer because if you were in the hospital at least you probably wouldn’t have to watch this movie because it isn’t even out yet and I assume in the hospital you have to settle for DVDs.* Arriaga is preoccupied with the complications of his characters, but rather than explore them, he seeks to disguise them in the complications of the story lines that don’t even end up being all that complicated,  just annoying.

The specifics of his characters’ problems could also be revealed in more subtle and organic ways.  When Sylvia (do you ever hear this name and not think of Sylvia Plath?  I personally don’t, and I think this is what Arriaga is banking on) walks up to the edge of a cliff, looking depressed and contemplates jumping over (we have to assume) it seems heavy handed and forced.  When the young girl, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), who has watched her mother burn to death, burns herself without pain in that way that freaky chicks do,  it is much too neat and matter of fact and parallel.  It doesn’t seems real and therefore isn’t compelling.

What I really want to latch onto in The Burning Plain is the complicated mother/daughter dynamic, particularly the climax that this conflict often reaches when the daughter is an adolescent.  This is a universal struggle and I love the idea of it being explored.  I could embrace this theme if only there weren’t so much filler packed in around it and a general feeling of hostility and disappointment towards all the female characters.  Sylvia has numbed herself to pain and pleasure and has sex simply to feel anything.  She never seems sympathetic in her neutral colored J. .Crew outfits with her unemotional sexuality.  Even as her secrets are revealed, her redemption is too tentative to truly bring relief.  Mariana, the teenager, is similarly cold and unforgiving while her mother, Gina (Kim Basinger) is an adulteress, abandoning her children to meet her Latin lover in a trailer.  She dies without any redemption.  Even the wife of her lover, Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), is portrayed as somewhat heartless and not present for her children when their father dies.  For a story that tries to explore the complexities of women, it uncovers nothing but their faults and even goes so far as to exalt the father characters as affectionate protectors and providers while their female counterparts are only philandering and selfish.  It’s difficult to appreciate characters when it seems that the filmmaker himself has such contempt for them.  

There were some standout performances in the movie that served as pleasant distractions.  Joaquim de Almeida as Kim Basinger’s lover is penetrating and passionate, even pit against Basinger’s all too familiar meek and unhappy mother character.  The young actors were also breaths of fresh air, particularly Jennifer Lawrence as Mariana.  Though saddled with obnoxiously corny dialogue at times, she is bright eyed and sad.  

It wasn’t surprising to me to hear that Arriaga had spent over a decade working on the script for The Burning Plain.  It felt like it had been steeped in that kind of self-indulgence and that makes for an uncomfortable and unsatisfying viewing experience.  A film like this doesn’t have to redeem the human race, or even all of its characters, but when we’re forced to swallow a happy ending (ew) with no cogent explanation, what’s the point?

*can you get Netflix delievered to a hospital?

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