Twentynine Palms

A movie that sits at the same high school lunchroom table as Gaspar Noe, Hanake and other European directors who think they're a lot more brooding, edgy and creative than they actually are. In truth, 29 Palms is a shallow and manipulative film. It's far too blunt to be saying anything insightful about human nature or relationships, and its violent ending confirms the vacuousness of the film's central message. It's more juvenile than shocking. Oh, and it's fucking boring, too.

The line between intense violence and intimate sex has never appeared so blurry before in this clear-sighted examination of a saturated culture. Slowness becomes tedium becomes broodiness, all building up to a conclusion so horrifying it left me with a nightmare several hours later that had me leaping out my bed in a massive sweat and an absolute state of panic.

This filmmaker's singular approach seems to this viewer to be preoccupied with the animality of man, with the depiction of "real life" in a way that has little if anything to do with cinematic convention, and with the sense of a gap or an emptiness in existence that we try in one way or another to deny, to fill or to explain. In other words, his concerns are existential in the proper sense of the term. This film seems quite an abstracted, yet also highly visceral, variation on these themes.

This movie will have you believing that we are all teetering on the edge of utter madness and despair.

I don't know how to say anything dignified about this. Its like Salo (which I liked) mixed with that German hippie left genital crabs allover your couch when you let him stay over for 3 days in the summer. The ending is magnificent for its jolt, and I understand that all the preceding tedium was leading to this, but its a vile and irritating place to spend your time. Fuck off with your movie. Punishment Park, All About My Sister and Salo I think do a better job.

A really disturbing look at the links between sex and violence, set in the unforgiving Californian desert. The build up is exquisitely paced, establishing a real intimacy between the couple. All the while a sense of menace, slowly and understatedly built by the director, looms until the truly horrifying climax.

"Dumont is clearly fascinated by America's wide-open spaces, and much of Twentynine Palms is a love poem to the way we look at the world." - Ed Gonzalez

Twentynine Palms is both a road-trip movie and a movie about relationships, bringing to the fore the madness caused by insecurity on both sides (of the sexual divide). Wissak is intense throughout, and Golubeva is fragile and alluring; they make a believable couple. And there are also a couple of crazy scenes at the end to look forward to...

I think I was just in the right (bad) mood for a blast of total misanthropy. I found the ending weirdly cathartic for some reason. I probably shouldn't say that out loud.

jesus...

Star Rating: ★★★★1/2

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Difficult to really rate this. Watched it over four weeks in french. The pool shot is excellent. The ending is kinda out there for me.

"I've never seen a Gaspar Noe film either and having read about them I'm not sure I want to." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2014/08/episode-25-bruno-dumont-and-new-french.html