A couple drives their Humvee into the California desert. David (David Wissak) is ostensibly working, scouting locations near Twentynine Palms for a photo or film shoot. His girlfriend, Katia (Katia Golubeva from Leos Carax's Pola X), is along for the ride. David is American; Katia is French and speaks little English. The couple travels through the desert, meandering through the vast, empty landscape. They argue. They make love. Writer/director Bruno Dumont (whose previous film, L'Humanité won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival) uses long takes and an elliptical structure to frame the action as these two characters struggle to communicate while traversing the long, dusty roads. The trip includes a stop for Chinese food, a brief encounter with a belligerent motorist, an argument over ice cream, a painful run-in with a three-legged dog, and a huge argument in the middle of the night, during which the two come to blows. Katia and David reach an uneasy reconciliation, but their strained, though passionate, relationship, is pushed to the breaking point when a terrible, traumatic incident unexpectedly occurs on the road. But the ultimate horror of their little excursion is yet to come. Twentynine Palms was shown at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival, and was shown by the Lincoln Center Film Society in 2004 as part of their annual Rendez-vous With French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
French filmmaker Bruno Dumont certainly polarized festival audiences with his alternately monotonous, pornographic, and shockingly violent Twentynine Palms. It's been called anti-American, homophobic, sexist, and misanthropic, but the film is both intriguing and upsetting enough to warrant serious consideration of its artistic merits. Dumont clearly means to shock us, but with the ascension of other likeminded European filmmakers like Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke, and François Ozon, that in itself may be becoming harder to do. Twentynine Palms has superficial similarities to such films as Noé's Irreversible, in which the sudden shock of unprovoked violence has a devastating effect on the relationship of an attractive young couple. Its perverse linking of sensuality to violence and death (in addition to lead actor David Wissak's passing resemblance to Vincent Gallo) will remind some viewers of Claire Denis' far more complex and engaging Trouble Every Day, while the lugubrious pacing and desert vistas recall Gus Van Sant's Gerry, and the mounting sense of dread, Elephant. But, as with his previous film, L'Humanité, Dumont brings a uniquely dystopic touch to the material. Cinematographer Georges LeChaptois captures the emptiness of the American desert landscape, while the largely improvised dialogue between Wissak and co-star Katia Golubeva hints at a spiritual and emotional emptiness that reveals its implications in the film's unforgettable final moments. Dumont never generates much sympathy for either character. He brings us into bitter arguments midstream, so that Golubeva comes off as hypersensitive and immature, while Wissak's hot temper and passionate, but abusively rough, sexuality render him even less pleasant company. Unlike L'Humanité, which had a frustratingly uncommunicative, but essentially humane, character at its center, the couple here function better as symbols. Twentynine Palms seems to suggest that they somehow deserve their horrific fate, which makes the film more hateful and less provocative. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Cast
Yekaterina Golubeva - Katia
David Wissack - David
Credit
Allen Bain - Associate Producer, Darren Goldberg - Associate Producer, Jesse Scolaro - Associate Producer, Yann Sobezynski - Associate Producer, Liz Jereski - Casting, Christoph Thoke - Co-producer, Axel Moebius - Co-producer, Christel Brunn - Co-producer, Yasmine Abraham - Costume Designer, Claude Debonnet - First Assistant Director, Bruno Dumont - Director, Dominique Petrot - Editor, Muriel Merlin - Executive Producer, Bob Brozman - Composer (Music Score), Takashi Hirayasu - Composer (Music Score), Georges LeChaptois - Cinematographer, Rachid Bouchareb - Producer, Jean Brehat - Producer, Michael Kranz - Sound/Sound Designer, Philippe Lecoeur - Sound/Sound Designer, Harald Guhn - Sound/Sound Designer, Bruno Dumont - Screenwriter, Johann Sebastian Bach - Featured Music
Shot in high-quality digital film. The film depicts a man and woman who venture into the desert town of Twentynine Palms. No background information or explanation is given as to who they are or why they are there.
