The Burning Plain
2008 (Italy), 2009 (USA)
The script for the Burning Plain was written and directed by the same guy
who wrote 21 Grams, Babel, Amores Perros, and The Three Burials of
Melquiades Estrada.
If you are familiar with those films, you probably already know whether you
want to see this one. People love his work or hate it. His scripts are
meticulously crafted in the same manner as Atom Egoyan's, with several
stories spinning off from a central tragic event, all of which eventually
come back to form a single narrative. Unlike chronological narratives,
which create dramatic tension and audience involvement from events per se,
Arriaga's scripts involve the viewer in the relationship between events. He
may reveal the film's central event right at the beginning of the film, or
he may place it somewhere in the middle, but the event itself is never
the reason why we want to watch. That is the structure used by Arriaga (and
Egoyan) to force us to concentrate on the characters' motivations, and
their relationship to one another, rather than on the things that happen to
them.
After watching one of his best films, you'll be amazed to find out that
less than nothing happened, and yet you never lost interest. By "less than
nothing," I am referring to his reversal of the usual screenwriting
process, in which mundane action builds up to a point where something
significant happens, at which point the film either ends or shifts our
interest from "What will happen?" to "How will people be affected?"
In Arriaga's scripts, the significant thing happens, then builds down to
humdrum action, and we are interested in how the characters could have
gotten to that climactic point in the first place. Only later, after some of the
secrets have been revealed, do we get an interest in how the event may have
affected them after it occurred. That is Arriaga's skill, and he is brilliant at it.
In this case, the central incident is an explosion in the desert. Two
lovers cheat on their respective spouses in an old trailer which seems to
be marooned in the middle of nowhere. A gas leak causes the trailer to
explode, killing the lovers instantly, their bodies fused together. Four
stories spin off from this event. One story line pictures the lives of the
lovers before the event. Another relates a romance which later develops
between the daughter of the cheating wife and the son of the cheating
husband. A third, at first seemingly unrelated, is about an unhappy woman
who uses casual sex as a form of self-punishment. The final story, which
also seems irrelevant when it begins, is about a Mexican-American daughter
and her beloved dad, who is a crop-dusting pilot. Although character
development is the film's raison d'etre, there is an element of mystery
which involves us. How do these characters fit together? Are all the events
taking place at the same time? Do these stories involve different
characters, or the same characters at different ages? What do those two
ostensibly unrelated plot threads have to do with the explosion? Was the
death of the lovers an accident? All of these questions are answered slowly
and adroitly.
I mentioned at the outset that people either love Arriaga's films or hate
them. I have mixed feelings about his work. While his exposition is brilliant, his weltanschauung is far
too bleak to present anything resembling real life in multiple dimensions.
His characters are wounded, bitter, and self-loathing caricatures. Their
lives are filled with abandonment, murder, infidelity, and despair. These
are the kind of people who think Leonard Cohen writes great drinking songs.
In fact, the terminally melancholy Cohen would probably find these
characters too depressing. I love some of his films, hate others. That
hinges on whether he can control his excesses: pretension, artiness, and
melodrama. He did so here. I think this is his subtlest work. Shockingly
enough, he even passes up on a chance to kill off a major character and ...
wait for it ... he actually has some Americans who are not racists ! Who
could have dreamed? OK, maybe there aren't any scenes that could be scored
with the Turtles' "Happy Together" instead of a Gregorian funeral dirge,
but you have to understand how hard it is for him to make this kind of
progress. Those in the fine arts tend to think that the greater the
despair, the greater the art, and they distribute awards and praise
accordingly. They are more likely to give Oscars to a lame holocaust movie
than a brilliant comedy. Given the positive reinforcement from peers, some
authors get addicted to writing about despair, and that addiction clouds
everything in their lives, just as if it were heroin. And it's just as hard
to kick.
Arriaga is in a very early stage of his 12 steps to get that monkey off his
back. But at least he's making progress.
A mystery to me ... this film was released last year in Italy. ONLY in
Italy. I wonder why
it was not released briefly in the USA to establish Oscar eligibility. It
would not have earned a Best Picture nod, but the screenplay and some of
the performances might have been recognized.
Nudity:
Whatever else you say about ultra-serious filmmakers, you have to admit
that they have no trouble getting important actresses naked. This film
gets Charlize Theron stark naked in the first minute. (So the director
definitely has his priorities straight!)