The Burning Plain

Brooding, evocative & redemptive.
I have enjoyed the work of Guillermo Arriage, including Babel and 21 Grams. However, Arriage uses the same technique with 'The Burning Plain, as he did in 'Babel,' which for me can be confusing, at times, and not a preferred methodology for most viewers. Here again, we are faced with current time, running parallel with a significant amount of back-story, and a multitude of characters that initially seem disconnected. It took me a while to realize what was going on. I should have had a clue, from Babel. Finally the stories began to converge---rather flawlessly, so it was well worth the patience required. In fact, in some respects, I think it was better constructed than Babel, in tying up loose ends.

Be warned, this (107 min) R-rated, romantic, mystery/drama, will not be for everyone. It is not action driven, aside from some self-mutilating behaviors, sensual scenes with nudity, and a trailer blowing up. It is not filled with gratuitous violence, awesome CGI, or other...

Fragmented tale of love as cycle of pain, scars and healing
The directorial debut of Guillermo Arriaga, screenwriter of 21 grams and Babel, is a tortured piece of work. Rather like its characters, it is beautiful to look at but bleak as we come to understand it. Thankfully, we are left with a message of hope, but it's a fragmented journey getting there as we experience love as it evolves not just through joy and happiness but through pain and scars.
It's one of those multi-stranded stories Arriaga specialises in... except this time, it is not always different characters we are observing - it's the same ones, in different times. One strand with Kim Basinger, involves a married woman, sneaking off from her empty marriage at lunchtime to her lover, in a trailer on a plain. It's this trailer on fire which gives the film its title. Then, there is the teenage daughter who has her own secrets and is drawn to the young Mexican man who she meets at his father's funeral. Finally, Charlize Theron plays the beautiful restaurateur, who away from...

Heated Parallels!!!
I'm certainly NOT an eloquent movie reviewer. I knows what I likes, and I likes what I knows. The Burning Plain deals with, well, pain...in the very REAL sense of the word. Dark secrets, hunted down, revealed, cloaked in ritualistic, mental and physical, self-inflicted pain!

I enjoyed the movie's flashbacks. Kept me on my toes. I UNDERSTOOD so much of the story plot. Human frailties, so raw, so exposed. The need to fill up the avoidable guilt-ridden void brought on by the inability to refuse, to just say no, to turn the other cheek, to just accept without questioning.

Watch the movie, The Burning Plain.
(Superb acting, exceptional cinematography...btw.)

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