Twentynine Palms (2004)
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43% of critics liked it
(37 reviews) -
40% of users liked it
(1,491 ratings)
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… More 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, Rovi
- Directed By
- Bruno Dumont
- Written By
- Bruno Dumont
- Genres
- Drama, Art House & International, Mystery & Suspense
R,
- In Theaters
- Apr 9, 2004 Wide
- Studio
- Wellspring
Critic Reviews
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Ty Burr, Boston Globe
A textbook example of how a director can strip away plot, motivation, character, and meaning and still leave arrant pretension standing tall.
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Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
Muddled.
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Michael Booth, Denver Post
In Twentynine Palms, writer and director Bruno Dumont takes his cultural revenge on the United States, attacking countless American stereotypes and in the process reinforcing an equal number of cliches about arrogant French auteurs.
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Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
It's alternately monotonous, hot and dramatic, which makes for a peculiar, not entirely unsatisfying atmosphere of neo -- or is that post? -- noir.
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Bob Townsend, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[Dumont] forces viewers to question not only what's on the screen, but ultimately, the very nature of reality.
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Cast
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Yekaterina Golubeva
as Katia
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David Wissack
as David
