thesiouxfallskid Review of Twentynine Palms

Twentynine Palms (2003)

Slow moving and not for those seeking an escape from drab reality (partial spoiler)

[4/10 · 5 November 2013]

Somewhere here someone mentions that you should see this film knowing hardly anything in advance. I agree. Better no idea, but how can you know you should see this film to begin with? Not a film for a lot of people. So I shall constrain my review so not to spoil it. I do not see any allegory as some apparently have. It tells a simple story. A man and a women stay in a motel in 29 Palms, California, and take drives out in the desert. They are lovers. They speak in both English and French. They make out and have their spats. Much of the film is slow moving. We get a heavy dose of drab reality as life is for so many of us, and what eventually later happens is another heavy dose of reality of something which does happen to a few of us. A film of nothing really beautiful. Drab, petty, slow, and then something happens. In a sense there is a certain meaninglessness throughout the film, but isn't life like that? Not a film for those depressed seeking something with which to feel good. Now there is matter-of-fact graphic nudity, which is the nudity most of us are familiar with more from life than from film. One thing it did for me is that I have resolved to have certain something with me when I go driving out in lonely stretches of desert. Definitely an art-house film, not for most of us, and not for sheer entertainment. More a film for those in a life of escapism who can use a heavy dose of reality.