Bergle At the Movies: 29 Palms

G'Day,

So, I was up last night (as always) and I see that Sundance is running 29 Palms. For whatever reason, I remember wanting to see it once upon a time, so I say 'fuck it' and decide I'll stay up a little later than I was planning on. Big mistake....

29 Palms (2003)
Directed by Bruno Dumont
Starring: David Wissak, Katia Golubeva

First and foremost, this is an art film. I say this not to scream from the rafters "Hey everyone, I watch art films!" but to set the context of what I'm about to describe. According to some, 29 Palms is an intense, if empty exploration of life and 'love' in the post 9/11 era. David (David Wissak) is a filmmaker or photographer (we never really find out) who goes to the town of 29 Palms with his Russian girlfriend Katia (Katia Golubeva), who appears to be emotionally unstable and whose French is as incomprehensible as David's is just plain bad.

The movie begins on the highways outside L.A.; David driving his bright, sparkling red H2 while Katia lies in the backseat. David stares intently at maps and takes a cell phone call during this sequence before pulling off the highway to gas up the 'truck'. They continue on, arrive at their hotel, fuck in the pool (violently, I might add; I wasn't sure for a moment if this was a rape scene or not--a thought I would come to regret...) and go to a local chinese restaurant where they split an appetizer and main course, pissing off the owner/waitress.

This was the first 30 minutes of the movie.

To say Dumont's style here is 'paced' is to be very, very kind. Like Mother Theresa kind. The only scene out of the beginning that is redeeming at all, in fact the only scene in the entire movie that rings true and is relateable in any way is between the gas station and the hotel. David, driving along, alternately staring off into the desert and not, is asked by Katia what he is thinking in that way that only girlfriends do. David of course says he isn't thinking about anything (and in his defense I have to say, I was watching and he didn't appear to be thinking about anything during the movie at all) which leads to Katia asking again and again because as a woman she can't believe that and David of course ends up getting angry because she won't let it go. It is so uncomfortable and tense and real and dead on it's scary. Of course the next time we see them they're in the motel pool and he's shoving his cock into her. Nice.

The next 75 minutes is a thrill ride that take us from harsh, barely-above-animalistic sex (not a dealbreaker, mind you) to long walks through the Joshua Tree National Park where David is 'scouting a shoot' to their hotel room. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only moments of anything are David straining under he and Katia's communication problem while they have ice cream, leading to the line of the movie...

David: "You know something? I'd like to have some conversations that have some logic to them, because sometimes you say one thing and then you say another thing and it's completely dysfunctional!"

Right on, brother. I've been waiting for over an hour for something like that. Of course, Katia pauses and then says "J'taime". Like that means anyfuckingthing at this point. The only other moment comes soon after. Katia locks herself in the bathroom (for reasons we never learn--lot of that in this movie) and David, frustrated with living with this potentially bipolar girl throws her out and locks the door behind her. In the resulting scene we see Katia pacing back and forth in front of the motel, the whole time running and hiding every time a car drives by, and not in the normal 'I don't want anyone to see me' way. She seems delusional (schizophrenic?) and when David comes out to bring her back inside, it literally takes them physically fighting in the middle of the street to bring her back to anything resembling a rational human being, and that's still a far way off for her.

That brings us to the conclusion of 29 Palms. The whole movie seems to be a poem about alienation in the modern world, but there's a slow build happening that speeds up dramatically with about 15 minutes left in the film. SPOILER ALERT, EVEN THOUGH IF YOU WANT TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS MOVIE IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: On yet another trek through the park, a large pickup truck rams the H2, pushing it to a stop. Three men hop out, dragging David and Katia out, throwing him to the ground and stripping her naked. As one man holds Katia around her neck another beats David with a bat, and the third guy sodomizes him while Katia is forced to watch. The scene ends as Katia, naked and beaten, crawls toward a severely injured and sobbing David over the course of minutes. Back at the motel, Katia insists they call the police to which David says no. Katia goes to pick up food, and when she comes back David bursts from the bathroom with a crudely shaved head and a knife, pins Katia down and stabs her to death in a brutal (and brutally depicted) manner. The movie ends with a police officer finding David dead in the desert mere feet from the ubiquitous H2.

Last night when the movie ended I was in a rage. I'd sat through two hours of the most vapid, boring, go-nowhere cinema I'd ever seen and my reward was the leading man getting fucked in the ass and going on to commit a horrible murder. That's the word actually: horror. This was the most horrible movie I've ever seen in my life. Not necessarily horrible as in bad, but horrible as in 'that's a horrible thing to have happened'. I crawled into bed after taking a moment to take everything in, and told the Gergle that "I just watched the worst movie ever made". I was angry, hurt, a little sick to my stomach even. I felt cheated, insulted, even a little violated (then again, in the face of what happened to poor David, I kept some perspective there). I wanted to write a review right then and there and go nuclear on the whole thing, this whole fucking worthless movie and director and his whole little hijack plan and his minimalist sensibilities. But it was already late and I thought it might do me some good to take the night to 'come down' from the experience. So here goes:

Dumont is a man whose philosophies come down to ideas like "We can fuck and fuck but never merge" and "Sex is death". His two previous movies to 29 Palms were set in remote parts of France, and from what I've heard are much better in terms of character, plot and...well, I guess everything. 29 Palms was Dumont's first time filming in America, and in many ways it shows. The man seems to have such hate for this country, or at least what he perceives this country to be. His character of choice (David) is a disheveled hipster dick who drives a huge gas-guzzling SUV through L.A. and then takes it out to the desert (presumably for the first time) and off-roading (poorly) in this vehicle that in reality only gives the illusion of off-road performance and is simply a Suburban with a different body welded to it. His French is worse than Katia's English (that's saying something) and he seems to have no sense of love outside of throwing himself into whichever of Katia's holes is most convenient and howling like an ape while doing so. I've read some takes on the movie that state that Dumont's point here is an examination of society after 9/11, and what happens after such a devastating event. This is understandable and somewhat provocative, but falls flat in the face of Dumont's complete lack of experience and understanding when it comes to America itself. In fact, his portrayal of Americans and American life serve only to land him directly in his own unfortunate stereotype: the condescending, head-up-his-own-ass, more ennui-than-thou Arty French Guy. Which is sad, since Dumont is obviously an intelligent man with something to say, all of which is wasted with his juvenile obsession with turn-on-a-dime sex and violence.

Looking at it now, however, 29 Palms has a thing or two that work in its favor. The first is the great "What are you thinking?" scene, although anyone who has ever been in a relationship could make that scene happen. The real thing that is great about the movie, and what should be the star, is the desert itself. The cinematography is out of this world beautiful. Dumont's style of directing leads to long shots with the camera not moving at all. There are many such shots in the movie with the H2 approaching from the horizon, or David and Katia walking away through the park. One scene with David and Katia on a rocky cliff is particularly beautiful. Unfortunately it all gets drowned out by the madness happening throughout.

Dumont's real vision with 29 Palms seems to be that of a deconstructed horror film, stripping away everything that isn't essential and leaving behind only characters, tension, dread and horror itself. It is an interesting idea but in this case seems to be too high a climb for the view. It struck me last night almost as if I'd ordered a deconstructed omelette only to realize too late that I was getting two scrambled eggs, a slice of cheese, a slice of bacon and being charged $30 for the privilege of the experience.

I've now come down from the initial shock of 29 Palms and have decided that it's not the worst movie I've ever seen, and the cinematography alone keeps it far from being the worst movie ever made. The concept and structure are interesting ideas, and the visceral experiences affect you as they are intended. Any movie that can bring out the range of emotions that this did must have hit its mark on some level. But I think that might be the problem: for all of Dumont's reasoning, for all of his effort to make his directing 'transparent' in the end it doesn't mean much of anything. The star of 29 Palms is the experience itself. The empty, meaningless experience. It is only a movie in the strictest sense, with flaws as basic as having poor characters with no history, reference, hopes or personalities to care about. There is no story to speak of. It is almost painful to watch even before the terrible events of the last 15 minutes.

As an experiment 29 Palms finds its only chance at redemption. In fact, the only way it can really be viewed is as an experiment in filmmaking. The minimalist, deconstructionist style on display here does not allow for real character development or plot movement. It does not allow for any of the things you expect from every other horror film you've ever seen. It only allows for the banality of life between two not particularly likeable people before something terrible happens to them for no goddamn reason at all. Dumont needs to stop justifying 29 Palms as a study of America post-9/11. If he wants to study that event and its effects, he can watch the fucking news footage from that day and then go fuck himself. We (I mean us in DC, NY and PA) saw it first-hand and don't need anyone reminding us of those feelings. We were there Bruno, thanks anyway. Dumont also needs to keeps his views of 29 Palms as a study of human aggression and natural inclination toward violence to rich-people artiste-chic party discussions. A view of humanity so coldly, horribly cynical with no room for compassion or caring only serves to take away from the pure experiment in horror that his movie is.

I guess that's the point. 29 Palms is as bad a movie as it is a good experiment in boiling down a genre of film and presenting its vital elements in all their pulsating, bloody glory. I abhor Dumont's justifications and explanations for making this 'story', for there is no story. But I readily admit that I can think of no one else who could direct such a movie without succumbing to the temptation to make a character sympathetic, to punch up a scene, to make David and Katia have a truly heartfelt conversation over dinner. His desire to make himself transparent as a director allowed him to make a film of pure horror without even an ounce of any unnecessary element.

I cannot in any way recommend that anybody see this movie. Then again, I can't really stop you can I? If you do decide to watch it, give yourself time to recover--you will need it. Try not to watch it as you would any other movie, because it is not. If you have two hours to waste on 29 Palms, you will probably either hate it with a passion, find some meaning in it, or come to accept it as I have as a very well shot piece of experimental film. For the rest of us I recommend Hitchcock's Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart and the beautiful Grace Kelly, which is everything a horror movie should be.

Coming tomorrow--My expose on the Esurance girl. Be there!