Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut feature, The Burning Plain, is a hyperlink sort of movie that Arriaga himself made famous in recent years with 21 Grams and Babel. Although it has been trashed and buried by both mainstream and non mainstream critics, The Burning Plain is an enjoyable, twisty turny, multicultural drama about adultery and childhood regret (if Kurosawa hadn't already used the title, No Regrets For Our Youth, back in 1946, it would've worked perfectly here).
Yes, the film is presented out of sequence, and yes, every stranger turns out to be connected to each other in way or another, but here I felt the film's jumbled presentation made sense. There is a twist in the storytelling about midway through that makes you view the piece from a different perspective, and it comes organically through the story, and not out of left field.
Some parts of the film are a little preposterous (the love interest between the two teenagers seems far fetched at first), but everything ties up nicely and its credibility is luckily not stretched thin. It isn't a mystery but it will keep you guessing, and in this case, it works.
Final Rating: 7/10 |
SPOTLIGHTS
