Twentynine Palms
by Bruno Dumont
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Actor: David Wissak, Yekaterina GolubevaDirector: Bruno Dumont
Cinematographer: Georges Lechaptois
Writer: Bruno Dumont
Editor: Dominique Petrot
Producer: Allen Bain
Producer: Axel Möbius
Producer: Christel Brunn
Producer: Christoph Thoke
Producer: Darren Goldberg
Producer: Jean Bréhat
Producer: Jesse Scolaro
Producer: Muriel Merlin
Producer: Rachid Bouchareb
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 119 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Wellspring
DVD Reviews of Twentynine Palms
DVD Review: So You Wondered What Happened to Scorcese's Taxi Driver
Summary: 3 Stars
**Major Spoilers**
Twenty Nine Palms was a hard one to watch. First it bored us to death with long, untrimmed scenes, seemingly about not too much.
But I didn't think a film that had indulged itself as much as this one would fail to provide a decent payoff at the end.
Well, the film paid off all right.
A lot of what seems to be aimless ballast in the film turns out to have informed the shocking ending.
This guy who looks and acts like Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver, has a lust for sex even Travis, despite his pent up violence, does not display.
Not that the girl wasn't mostly game, though she complained about the underwater sex act in the motel swimming pool. She said her boyfriend "hurt" her.
A group of marines jump into the pool. 'Travis' then asks Katie if he would still be acceptable if he shaved his head like the raucous marines. She said he would NOT be acceptable, but the marines were "very handsome." This is a very ambivalent response to a pretty jealous boyfriend. The hair theme is pronounced in the film. It is a manlihood issue for 'Travis.' At one point Katie asks Jim what he uses on his hair. He doesn't answer.
The Marine discussion is one in a long series of actions, sex play and significant dialog between the couple that inform the violent end of the film.
'Travis' is ambivalent and a little jealous of those marines that broke up the tryst in the pool. Both the raucous marines and the jealousy theme echo in the rape scene near the end and the devastating Tsunami-like backlash later in the motel room.
There's a theme of isolation in the desert and in the two lovers' almost total separation from everyone as they wander from motel to desert and back again. The most extreme example of it is when the french-speaking Katy leaves the motel after an argument with 'Travis,' but then is so terrified at just the approach of a car on the street, that she finds herself forced to return to her lover's 'custody.' Figure it out, though. This woman does not speak English, while he does, and would not be able to explain herself to desert denizens and Los Angelenos. She has to go back to him and probably isn't that happy about returning.
At one point, the couple watches a father confess he had sex with their daughter to his wife on Jerry Springer. All along, Jim-'Travis' has been showing signs of abject soulessness in discussions with Katie. "I feel sorry for her,"says Katie. "For Who," asks Jim? "The Mother," replies Katie. Then Katie asks Jim, "would you do anything like that? "Are you crazy," replies Jim, unconvincingly. Katie looks at Jim to try to divine whether he is lying. In the right circumstance Jim would have sex with his daughter. Jim turns and smiles. The move convinces Katie it is safe to leave Jim alone with her daughter should she ever have one.
The storyteller is showing us that these two have opted away from civilized ways. In a way, they DESERVE what happens to them for wandering outside the boundaries of civilization. The uncivilized sexual play of the two in deserted and lonely places is still another indication that these two are asking for it. Indeed, their behavior contains the seeds of their destruction.
Finally, there is a need to explain the final scene of a dead naked body in the desert while a lone policeman does a 360 around body and Hummer. There were two scenes in the hotel room, one of Travis stabbing Katie in a manner that mirrors physically what had happened to him in the desert. It should be noted that he has shaved his head in the way that Bickel did in Taxi Driver, a way that Katie has said she would not approve of on him, but WOULD APPROVE OF on the Marines in the pool. See the link between the thugs in the desert and the marines in the pool on the one hand, and the ironic sheering of Jim's own locks in the bathroom before his act of rage against Katie and the World. Jim is re-enacting exactly what happened to him in the desert, coiffed like the skinhead who raped him and the marines who made him jealous.
There's the scene of Jim poised over Katie's lifeless corpse on the bed, then one of the corpse alone on the bed.
So what is Jim doing out in the desert in the last scene? I think it is possible he went out looking for the guys in the white truck and found them. They then stripped him naked again and this time finished the job. A bigger likelihood is that Jim abandoned Katie's body in the motel, drove out to the exact place where he had been raped, and, partly in remorse and despair, partly out of hopelessness, cut his own throat with the same dull knife he first cut his hair with, and then offed Katie.
This might be somewhat hard for some to admit. I'll bet I wasn't the only male who laughed at the irony when the skinhead pulled Jim's pants below his bare rear end and had a go at him.
As Roxie Hart & Chorus explained in a stagey musical number in the movie Chicago: "He Had It Comin'!"
Description of Twentynine Palms
From Bruno Dumont, one of the leading visionaries of world cinema, comes Twentynine Palms, a mesmerizing story of love, sex and evil set deep in the Joshua Tree desert. While scouting for a photo shoot location, an American photographer (David Wissak) and his Russian/French girlfriend (Katia Golubeva) spend their days engaging in impassioned fights, hasty reconciliations and frequent bouts of sex, until a shocking act of desperation leads to an unforeseen and brutal climax. DVD extras include: 5.1 Extraction, Trailer, Interview with Director, EPK, Making of Reel, Subtitle ControlNo one can accuse director Bruno Dumont of taking the easy road. Dumont's Life of Jesus and L'Humanite are fascinating, but they test the comfort zone of even the most devoted art-house maven. Twentynine Palms serves up more of Dumont's uncompromising rigor, this time set in America. A couple scout locations in the desert around Joshua Tree, and spend most of their time fighting or having sex. The frankness of the director's approach to sex does not prepare one for the shock of the truly bleak final reels. This Last Tango in Zabrieskie Point has a lulling, creepy power before it reaches those shocks, although actors David Wissak and Katia Golubeva are perhaps not as compelling as Dumont wants them to be. Of course, he's showing empty people traversing one of the emptiest places on earth--so maybe it fits. In any case, this film will shake you if you stick with it. --Robert Horton
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