Bruno Dumont's 29 Palms

[Chris Knipp]

[Not to be confused with Leonardo Ricagni's 2004 noir 29 Palms, starring Chris O'Donnell, Michael Lerner, and Jeremy Davies.]


(A logical place for this might be the thread on Bruno Dumont started by Oscar Jubis, The Philosopher and the Genital Closeup, but since this new movie seemed to have been eagerly anticipated by some of our more active members but I can't find any other comment on it, I'm introducing it here. It was discussed on another website by Howard Schumann. Has anyone here talked about it? Bruno Dumont's movies always stimulate debate, sometimes among total strangers on the way out of the theater after a viewing.)

Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms (2003)

Strayed

A young Russian woman and a young American man -- David (David Wissak) and Katia (Yekaterina Golubeva) -- who communicate in minimal French, go out to the desert from LA and stay at a motel in the town of Twentynine Palms, California, which adjoins the Joshua Tree National Park, and make day trips in an all-terrain vehicle and swim and soak in the motel pool in between. Highways, convenience stores, windmills, mountains, rocks, naked bodies, sex, and eventually, rednecks and violence. Dumont was consciously remaking an American horror movie. In his mind it's the quintessential expression of American violence This isn't as vapid a film as Zabriskie Point, but in a way Dumont is as out of place in the American desert as Antonioni was, and Twentynine Palms, with its pretty minimalist images and nice bodies, is a far cry from the semi-civilized naifs and regional specificity of his two powerful earlier movies, La vie de Jésus (1997) and L'Humanité (1999). There's the emptiness but not the passion. This is almost like a fashion shoot. In an interview he says he'd like to make a Hollywood movie. He's ready to change. He doesn't want to go on making the same kind of movie. Well, so, we got this. It's striking and beautiful to look at, but (hastily made, and in a foreign country) it feels drained of everything that made Dumont's work seem so troubling, original, and important: namely the specificity and detail of the observed locales and people. David and Katia are separated from any associations, if they once had them. They're on an idyl, even if it's inarticulate and turns grim. Horror movies have personalities, characters, encounters, interesting sets; this lacks those. Antonioni wouldn't have made a horror movie. Perhaps Dumont shouldn't have tried to either. A disappointing égarement and a hint that Dumont, though he talks a good game (his earnest convictions are expressed in the interview given on the US DVD), may be on the way to becoming more annoying than challenging. But if he goes back to working in Bailleul, in France, where he came from and where he belonged, because he knows the territory there and what he sees there seems real to us, things may get better again.

[arsaib4]

Thanks for introducing it here.

Not to be confused with Leonardo Ricagni's 2004 noir 29 Palms

Was that a joke?

I'm trying to find something to disagree with here but I'm having a hard time. You've written a lot of reviews, many much longer than this one, but I think this is one of your best. I do think better of Antonioni's film but that might be for another time. As you said "Dumont is out of place," but do you think that's the impression he wanted to create?

I have the French DVD which apparently has a few more extra features. The behind-the-scenes doc is fascinating. Dumont had a lot of trouble here. Ms. Golubeva is as moody a person in real-life as she's in the film (she got pissed and broke someone's nose on the set). Wissak isn't much better. But that's what Dumont likes. In his own ways, he tries to blur the difference between reality and fiction for his characters by putting them through extreme situations.

Don't be so down on him. I'd rather have him experiment like this then directing you know what. Looking forward to his war film called Flanders, should be at Cannes next year.

[Chris Knipp]

It wasn't entirely a joke, because I looked up "29 Palms" on IMDb, not knowing that Dumont's title was "Twentynine Palms," and I got that.

You're right that Antonioni's films are for another time and Dumont's are for now.

I am probably going to be watching more DVD's because I'm starting to have Netflix, and I can't write long reviews of every movie I see on DVD.

I really like Dumont. His earlier two movies made a powerful and original impression. HE seemed one of the most important new directors. Is he going to turn into a disappointment?

Now, in a longer review I would have commented on the images of Twentynine Palms, which really are beautiful, the camera does some remarkable things at times with the landscape and even the motel, which through this lens achieves a cold grandeur -- but I share Dumont's own expressed disapproval of the nudes-on-the-rocks shot from above, which he said was too commercial. Yet he left it in and it got reproduced beside US reviews. I'd like to see the making-of film and the US DVD is pretty lousy. It has about 20 previews of other movies on it; I'm not kidding; and the interview is hastily cut with a constant English voiceover which you can imagine I hated since I want to hear the French. If nothing else the movie was a disappointment because there's hardly any French in it and the French isn't good. I had seen the information elsewhere that Golubeva was a bitch. Didn't know the guy was too.

Milieu is important. Some comment that the acting in his earlier films is terrible, and it's absurd it was given awards. But the authenticity of the people in them was shocking and part of the power. It's borderline exploitive, but it works. The other films are infinitely different from this new one, the intensity of the milieu, its oppressiveness and specificity are so thick you can taste them. What on earth was he thinking? L'Humanité is the one I got into a heated discussion about with strangers walking out of the theater. A film that gets you talking that way is a good film. I can only imagine walking out of Twentnine Palms feeling too dispirited and disillusioned to debate it with anybody.

People have written about Brown Bunny in relation to this and the comparison isn't irrelevant. The thing is, Brown Bunny rings true, it's heartfelt, and Gallo knows his milieu even though it's cross-country, because he's an American and he knows our highways; and he too has some lovely images. Somebody said the plot of Brown Bunny was War and Peace compared to this. Well I won't go there. I love Gerry.

I'm not completely down on him. I hope he doesn't go the way of John Woo. But how could he? What Hollywood producers are going to look at his films and see money?

[arsaib4]

People have certainly made that comparison (including me). Especially the personalities. But, believe it or not, Dumont is more of an asshole. I have already stated my love for The Brown Bunny on numerous occasions.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that Dumont tried to make any grand statements about the American way of life. This was a sort of an experiment so he tried to throw as many things at us as he could. Of course, there are a few who consider it a great film. Cahiers' editor Jean-Michel Frodon wrote a brilliant piece on it once. Obviously, I'm haven't seen the film for a long time now so my thoughts are rather scattered.

I'm not sure if this was on the American DVD, but Dumont has a great producer. He was a teacher once and he had no clue about the business until he befriended Dumont. He takes care of a lot of things for him. The protagonist of Jesus was a little off. They had to practically drag him to the sets every day after finding him sleeping on some street. It's safe to say that you won't be seeing any major actors in his films anytime soon. Dumont loves this.

[Chris Knipp]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that Dumont tried to make any grand statements about the American way of life. This was a sort of an experiment so he tried to throw as many things at us as he could.

That's clear; it is an experiment; but was it a wise one on the part of somebody who had achieved such remarkable effects working differently, close to home? I agree Dumont is not making any statements about the American way of life, grand or otherwise, in Twentynine Palms. I'm only saying it's a loss that he's out of the Bailleul milieu and away from Bailleul people-- both being very specific in and essential to his previous films, as I think has been frequently noted elsewhere. The people in Twentynine Palms don't have any such specificity. They're also rather attractive, as is the scenery, and that doesn't seem to fit with Dumont's previous way of working.

I'm not concerned with the degree of personal charm or good manners the director has comapred to somebody else and I'm sure you aren't either -- though I'm glad that Dumont has a producer who's capable of acting as a middleman. There is a certain comparison between Brown Bunny and this, not of directorial personalities, but I wouldn't have mentioned Brown Bunny in comparison with this if I hadn't seen it mentioned repeatedly in this context by others -- including the person who made the "War and Peace" remark. I didn't read anything about Twentynine Palms recently before writing my initial comment, i might add. I read one or two reviews when it was distributed in this country.

I'd have to say the extreme reactions to Twentynine Palms that I've seen on the Net from critics and IMDb audience members are too impulsive, in my view. I don't think it's at all a success, but it's not a complete piece of trash either. On IMDb I gave it 7/10, and a lot of the positive points come through because of the visuals. The director's style is still there, too. It's a misstep but not a sellout.