Twentynine Palms is a 2003 drama film written and directed by Bruno Dumont.[1] Set in Twentynine Palms, the film is about an American photographer and his Russian girlfriend as they scout locations for a photo shoot.
Plot
With a Russian woman called Katia, a young American photographer called David drives a Hummer from Los Angeles to a motel in the little desert town of Twentynine Palms. As she hardly speaks English and he speaks no Russian, they talk in French, a language in which neither is confident. Much of their communication is therefore non-verbal and the two frequently misunderstand each other.
Their days are spent driving and walking around the empty desert, sometimes naked. They make love, they fight, or just pass time. The camera contrasts the vastness, timelessness and emptiness of the landscape with the two small humans. Yet, as well as natural beauty, the desert contains menace. Stopped by a pick-up full of rednecks, David is beaten and raped while Katia is stripped and forced to watch. Back at the motel after their ordeal, David cuts off his hair before stabbing Katia to death. The police find the Hummer in the desert with his corpse beside it.
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 40% approval rating based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A muddled and inconsequential drama".[2] On Metacritic it has a score of 43 out of 100 based on 16 critics reviews.[3]
Lisa Nesselson of Variety magazine wrote "A "Zabriskie Pointless" for the new millennium, Bruno Dumont‘s third feature, Twentynine Palms, is a narcolepsy-inducing road movie in which an American guy and a French-speaking babe get in a red Hummer and drive toward the titular California desert destination. Pic fails to captivate or intrigue at the most basic level."[4] Ty Burr of The Boston Globe described the film as "a textbook example of how a director can strip away plot, motivation, character, and meaning and still leave arrant pretension standing tall".[5]
In a article for the Christian Science Monitor, David Sterritt wrote about the film "While many will find the movie dull and distasteful in the extreme, it has deeply serious ideas at its core - the same subtly philosophical and implicitly theological concerns that mark Dumont's earlier films, which also criticize people who live entirely in the physical realm of existence at the expense of mental and spiritual perceptions. Dumont's methods are radical, but there's a fascinating method to his seeming cinematic madness."[6]
Coulthard, Lisa (2015). "Uncanny Horrors: Male Rape in 'Twentynine Palms'". In Grant, Barry Keith (ed.). The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (2nd ed.). New York: University of Texas Press. pp. 488–508.
