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Rating:
French filmmaker Bruno Dumont certainly polarized festival audiences with his alternately monotonous, pornographic, and shockingly violent Twentynine Palms. It's been called anti-American, homophobic, sexist, and misanthropic, but the film is both intriguing and upsetting enough to warrant serious consideration of its artistic merits. Dumont clearly means to shock us, but with the ascension of other likeminded European filmmakers like Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke, and François Ozon, that in itself may be becoming harder to do. Twentynine Palms has superficial similarities to such films as Noé's Irreversible, in which the sudden shock of unprovoked violence has a devastating effect on the relationship of an attractive young couple. Its perverse linking of sensuality to violence and death (in addition to lead actor David Wissak's passing resemblance to Vincent Gallo) will remind some viewers of Claire Denis' far more complex and engaging Trouble Every Day, while the lugubrious pacing and desert vistas recall Gus Van Sant's Gerry, and the mounting sense of dread, Elephant. But, as with his previous film, L'Humanité, Dumont brings a uniquely dystopic touch to the material. Cinematographer Georges LeChaptois captures the emptiness of the American desert landscape, while the largely improvised dialogue between Wissak and co-star Katia Golubeva hints at a spiritual and emotional emptiness that reveals its implications in the film's unforgettable final moments. Dumont never generates much sympathy for either character. He brings us into bitter arguments midstream, so that Golubeva comes off as hypersensitive and immature, while Wissak's hot temper and passionate, but abusively rough, sexuality render him even less pleasant company. Unlike L'Humanité, which had a frustratingly uncommunicative, but essentially humane, character at its center, the couple here function better as symbols. Twentynine Palms seems to suggest that they somehow deserve their horrific fate, which makes the film more hateful and less provocative. Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

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