Over the last decade one of the most estimable double acts in the world cinema was that of the Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu and the writer Guillermo Arriaga. Working together so closely that their films shared a distinctive outlook and dual authorship, the two were responsible for 2000’s Amores Perros, 2004’s 21 Grams and 2006’s Babel. Their small, but acclaimed, canon spoke to the tenuous links that mark contemporary lives – for the better or worse – the irremovable weight of fate and decisions we make when we already feel compelled to act in a certain way. The setting of their works – Mexico, America, across the globe respectively – mirrored the growth of their profile.
By Babel’s release they’d fallen out irrevocably, over perceptions of credit claimed and due, and each has gone his separate ways. The Burning Plain, Arriaga’s feature debut as a director, is the first work to appear post-split (Inarritu’s Biutiful, with Javier Bardem, is due for release later this year). It makes clear that Arriaga sees structure as his domain – like his previous stories, it cuts back and forth between places and, you eventually realise, time, asking you to piece together scenes without context so that you have no expectations or pre-ordained thoughts. It is a mystery without a simple solution.
There is a danger, with such an intricate design, that it serves not to illuminate the characters but obscure their motives. The individual storylines have a heavy, studied feel, as if you’re examining these lives at a microscopic level. Working at a high-end Portland restaurant, the unsettled Sylvia (Charlize Theron), contemplates the rocks at the base of a cliff, insinuating her fragile standing even as her encounters with a kitchen hand (John Corbett) suggest something she wishes to obliterate, even if for a few minutes. In the middle of the desert, Gina (Kim Basinger) is being pulled apart by the sheer empty space surrounding her. An affair with a distant neighbour (Joaquim de Almeida) literally gives her something to hold onto.
Hollywood actresses don’t always get to play such roles, where the camera of Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) scrutinises their face and bodies with reverential care. But I’m not sure that Arriaga can draw anything more from either female lead that we haven’t seen before in The Door in the Floor (Basinger) or Aeon Flux, sorry Monster (Theron). Both are so fixed in their task, that they combine with Arriaga’s heavy directorial gaze to weigh the story down. There’s not a flicker of levity, a hint of the emotionally unpredictable. Arriaga’s steady, encompassing approach eventually becomes heavy-handed, even as he slowly makes the connections between various narratives, and lesser strands within those narratives, apparent.
The Burning Plain sits on the edge of gloominess, which doesn’t always feel right in a landscape where character’s mistakes pinball to the next generation, creating a ripple effect that keeps them off-balance as their successors try to right themselves. It’s a fair debut by Arriaga, but the upper hand may still lay with Inarritu.
