Venice 2008 – “The Burning Plain”
“The Burning Plain” is a drama that explores the mysterious connection between several characters separated by time and space: Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16-year-old girl trying to put together the shattered lives of her parents in a Mexican border town; Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a woman in Portland who must undertake an emotional odyssey to burnish a sin from her past; Gina, Sylvia’s mother (Kim Basinger) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), a couple who must deal with an intense and clandestine affair; and Maria (Tessa Ia), a young girl who helps her parents find redemption, forgiveness and love.
The film is the first of five U.S. entries to appear in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.
“The Burning Plain” is the directorial debut by acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga who is best known for his scripts that include well received dramas “Amores perros“, “21 Grams” and “Babel“, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Arriaga also wrote “The Burning Plain.”
“I enjoyed every single moment of it. I can tell you that directing was maybe the happiest moment of my professional life. Just arriving on set I had a smile … and it hasn’t vanished until now”
he told reporters.
As well as time, the film explores the elements, each storyline represents either earth, air, fire or water. Landscape is central to the movie which Arriaga initially had titled, “The Four Elements.” Water, earth, wind and fire are present as the story moves back and forth from the searing dryness of New Mexico to the nonstop rain in Portland, Ore.
“We experienced the desert and the sun and the extreme cold in the desert to the nonstop rain in Oregon. I think the weather and the landscape also influences the character.”
“We never in real life tell stories in a linear way. We tell it always in a decomposed way. I think that cinema is a very young medium and it’s beginning to find its own language and among these languages is the deconstruction of time”
Arriaga said.
Venice 2008 After Burning
“Burn After Reading” (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand) finally had its long awaited premiere at Venice Film Festival.
The movie re-unites Joel and Ethan Coen with George Clooney, who appeared in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and actress Frances McDormand (Joel’s wife) who won an Oscar for her role in their 1996 film “Fargo“.
“I’ve done three films with them and they call it my trilogy of idiots”
Clooney told reporters after a press screening (”O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “Intolerable Cruelty” and “Burn After Reading”).
He plays a nervous, twitchy federal marshal whose extra-marital affairs bring him into contact with a gym instructor, played by Pitt, desperately seeking to extort money from a sacked CIA analyst whose memoirs go missing.
“After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted”
said Brad Pitt, whose character the directors describe as a “knucklehead”.
Brad was asked how the chosen ones are doing.
