Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Special Pre-Festival Portland Event!

THE BURNING PLAIN

With Guillermo Arriaga
7:30 p.m.  Northwest Film Center, Portland

 

The Burning Plain poster

United States, 2009
Directed by Guillermo Arriaga
Screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga
Cinematography by Robert Elswit
Editing by Craig Wood
Music by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Hans Zimmer
Cast: Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Lawrence, John Corbett, Joaquim De Almeida
Running Time: 107 minutes

 

 

The Burning Plain stillCritically acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, Amores Perros, 21 Grams) made his directorial debut with The Burning Plain (2009), set and largely filmed in Portland, Oregon. At the Venice Film Festival where it premiered, the film received a standing ovation and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for, in her first featured role, an eighteen-year-old actress named Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence’s audition tape blew away the film’s executive producer and star, Charlize Theron, when Arriaga brought it to her.

Three years after the film’s release in the U.S., where it fared less well commercially than it did in Europe, Arriaga returns to Oregon for a series of screenings hosted by the University of Oregon’s Cinema Pacific Film Festival. Maybe Arriaga’s eloquent presence, or the chance to see Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence pre-Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, will encourage you to take a second look at this strong and neglected work.

The Burning Plain stillAs usual with Arriaga, the film is an ensemble drama following several characters in different times and places. Here, the characters are an Oregon woman trying to reconcile with her mother after a traumatic childhood; two teenagers trying to save their parents in a New Mexico border town; a young girl on a journey of redemption; and a couple dealing with their extramarital affair. Sylvia (Charlize Theron), Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), and Gina (Kim Basinger) are the central female characters who suffer from damaged pasts.

With filming locations mostly in Oregon and New Mexico, the film is beautifully shot by the great cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood). Arriaga’s intricate writing weaves together the intercut storylines in a continuously dramatic fashion. The Burning Plain’s fragmented approach to storytelling may require viewers to put the pieces together themselves, but this work is amply rewarded.