The Burning Plain

Director: Guillermo Arriaga
2008/ USA/ 111 minutes

Writer turned director Arriaga has been known for his complicated intertwining tales of lost souls falling in and out of favour with the world around them. His films including Amorres Perres and Babel are often harrowing fragile films, full of characters teetering on the edge of existential crises moments away from connecting with other unsuspecting beings. It is a formula Arriaga bleeds dry in order to really get under the skin of the human condition and inspect the fractured elements of perfectly colliding strangers.

In this feature, Arriaga writes and directs. The film opens with a beautiful picture of a caravan burning in a desert cropped with ragged mountains. Gently, he allows us into the world of Sylvia played by Charlize Theron. She plays a very secretive woman, gaunt and miserable. We are showed her contempt for men early on and her predilection for self-mutilation. Arriaga’s signature method is to provide bits and pieces of his protagonists past very gradually. He introduces a number of other characters, past and present, merging at times allowing us easy passage back and forth. These include a younger girl Mirana, the mother and wife Gina played by Kim Basinger and Maria, an adolescent girl travelling with a much older man. All at first seem unrelated.

Time will tell how far Arriaga can milk this tried and tested formula. Imagine Quentin Tarantino remaking Pulp Fiction four times over. It just would not be done. Through his writing at least, Arriaga has transported his methods across countries as far flung as Tokyo and Mexico finding more and more original ways of tying them all together. He has implemented everything from drugs to murder to family situations to adultery and extortion in a bid to keep this type of storytelling alive. Saying all this however, The Burning Plain works, for a number of reasons.

First of all, Charlize Theron, as always, is incredibly watchable. She has mastered acting to such an extent now that no role is out of her grasp. Without using much dialogue, her face conveys a multitude of horrors and mistakes, contemplation, fear, the list is endless. Her presence alone here is enough for the ticket price. But Kim Basinger also provides a top-notch performance, albeit in a very different role. Here, she is the adulterous wife playing away from home with Nick, played by Jaoquim de Almeida. Her role is much quieter, softer and if anything- timid. Her downfall, unlike other Arriaga characters, is very much out of her own hands. Basinger plays it subtle and assured, blessing the screen with a calming, enchanted protagonist.

The cinematography is stunning. The camera zips through Texan desert floors, road tracks, seaside cliffs with a beautiful glossy smoothness. The story is tight and interesting without getting too bogged down and becoming difficult for the viewer to keep up with past and present motions.

In contrast with the rest of the film, the ending, surprisingly, was neatly wrapped up, leaving us very little room for guesswork. It did not present us with anything too challenging which, for me, after watching the likes of 21 Grams, was a pity. But saying that, this is a intriguing film providing many gifted actors with perfect characters that all play out well together. As one of the finer films at the Film Festival, it goes to show, sometimes having more money to make a film beats independent clout and edgy experimenting.

-Shane O'Reilly