a SIFF 2009 review
Burning Plain an Emotional Firestorm
Sylvia’s (Charlize Theron) restaurant is performing wonderfully, the tables consistently filled with local celebrities and politicians eager to give her culinary offerings exuberant praise. Yet this beautiful woman is not happy, spending her evenings in a never-ending series of one night stands that has her employee and best friend Laura (Robin Tunney) growing increasingly worried.
Jennifer Lawrence and JD Pardo in Magnolia Pictures' The Burning Plain
Deep in the heart of Mexico, two teenagers have just endured the tragic loss of a parent, Mariana’s (Jennifer Lawrence) mother and Santiago’s (JD Pardo) father engaged in a passionate affair that ultimately led to their deaths. Their respective living parents want them to have nothing to do with one another, but like Romeo and Juliet these two youngsters are feeling a kinetic longing neither of them can resist.
Gina (Kim Basinger) is unhappy with her life. Stuck in a lifeless marriage, she remains only because of the love she feels for her three children, protective of them in only a way a caring mother would be. But that has not stopped her from entering into an affair with the soft-spoken Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), the two clandestinely meeting in an old abandoned trailer smack dab in the middle of a dusty forgotten plain.
With the melodrama The Burning Plain, Oscar-nominated writer Guillermo Arriaga (Babel) makes his English language directorial debut. Another large scale epic told in a fractured, non-linear style and featuring a multitude of characters all mysteriously connected, the movie is at heart an old-fashioned parable of love, forgiveness and regret. It bobs and weaves this way and that, and while its conclusion is never in doubt getting there proves to be such a heartfelt maelstrom of emotional upheaval even though the surprises are few getting to them still packs a pretty mean wallop.
The film works best when it focuses on the kids. It is their tale that drives things forward, their decisions the ones everything hinges upon. Both Pardo and especially Lawrence invest themselves completely into this relationship, the pain and suffering both of them feel magnificently colored by the love and adoration they almost can’t help but have one for the other making Mariana’s final decisions all the more heartbreaking.
Not that the adult actors do not do their best to equal them. Basinger, in particular, is absolutely terrific, her work as the emotionally conflicted Gina easily her best since winning the Academy Award for L.A. Confidential a decade ago. No, the problem – if there is even one – isn’t so much with the cast as it is with their respective storylines. The teens have the most fully fleshed out one in the film, the adults forced to having to construct many of the facets pertaining to their narratives almost as if out of thin air.
Yet this is not a problem, a fact that is both a testament to their respective talents as much as it is to Arriaga’s steady hand. Even if his script isn’t as expressive and as realized as his ones for Amores Perros or Babel his handling of the interconnected storyline is borderline perfect. Everything ends up fitting together poignantly, and even though I knew the secrets he was trying to keep hidden their power to move me to genuine tears remained intact.
It helps immensely that cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) photographs things splendidly, his steady hand allowing Arriaga a freedom to explore the frame he otherwise might not have had. I was also quite taken with veteran composer Hans Zimmer’s (Angels & Demons) breathtaking score, his quietly expressive themes conveying just the right sentiments without ever feeling overbearing or in the way.
I admit to wanting a bit more a time or two (especially during the bits involving Theron), some of the pieces a bit too obtuse and ill-fitting for my tastes. In spite of that fact the movie builds to its scrumptiously devastating coda with powerful forcefulness. I sat in the theater quietly letting it all sink in, the trickle of tears flowing steadily upon my cheek ones I hesitated to wipe away. While not perfect, Arriaga’s The Burning Plain is a ferociously fiery project filled with passion, my only hope being the next time the filmmaker steps behind the camera he finds a way to duplicate this success.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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