The Burning Plain

“The Burning Plain” was written by Guillarmo Arriaga (“Babel”, “21 Grams”) and represents his directorial debut. It stars Charlene Theron, Kim Basinger and an amazing young Mexican actress, Tessa Ia. As with most story lines with flashbacks and current scenes significantly intermingled, the film would have better told its story in a more chronologically satisfying manner. The editing alone cannot be blamed for the confusion. For me, at least, the biggest problem in the film is that the adult characters portrayed in their teens by younger actors bear very little physical resemblance to their older generational counterparts. That, coupled with complicated plot and time lines (sometimes difficult to follow), made the experience more of a challenge than an enjoyable theatrical experience. In addition to all of this, there is very little dimension or depth to most of the main characters with more questions asked about them than are answered. Tessa Ia, the young Mexican actress, is a wonderful performer and is able to communicate feelings and emotions by way of expression and body language better than many seasoned veterans do with paragraphs of dialogue. I give this film 2 and ½ stars with a suggestion that you eat lots of blueberries and other brain nourishing foods so that you will be on top of what is happening during this 2 hour movie exam. What is so interesting about the reactions to this film is that many respected critics literally loved it while others didn’t like it at all.
How one experiences a film can be affected by many things so, as with everything, the individual viewer will be the best judge of all. What is clear, however, is that this is not a universally great piece of cinema art.