by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
It seems that the final installment of the incredibly powerhouse Hunger Games franchise has arrived. Many might be sad to see the last of Katniss (or so we’re assuming), but for me, I’m excited to see what other exciting projects and captivating performances Lawrence will now spend her time on after being free from such a time-consuming film series.
For many, Katniss is the first time countless audience members ever laid eyes on Lawrence and it’s the image which will remain with them for the rest of her career. Personally, I will never forget the astounding work she made in what was only her second film, The Burning Plain.
The directorial debut of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, The Burning Plain features two stories in two separate worlds and eras. The first takes place in the present day Pacific Northwest and tells the story of a beautiful, yet damaged restauranteur who calls herself Sylvia (Charlize Theron). Sylvia lives a life closed off from everyone she encounters due to a life-changing event from her past, which has recently come back to haunt her.
Told in flashback, the second story centers on a 1980s New Mexico housewife named Gina (Kim Basinger), who despite a loving husband and a brood of four kids, has embarked on a passionate love affair with a man named Nick (Joaquim de Almeida). Gina’s happiness is marred by a heavy guilt, as well as a growing suspicion from her oldest daughter Mariana (Lawrence).
The heart and soul of The Burning Plain is the incredibly emotional journey of three women at three extremely different and complicated times in their lives. There’s the central character of Sylvia who is successful and trying to live a stable life, forever pushing away a horrendous past event from which she’s never recovered. Sylvia so wonderfully contrasts Gina, a loving and devoted woman who is torn by her love of family and the man she is truly in love with. Finally, in what is the most emotionally complex character of the piece, there’s Mariana; a teenage girl so perfectly drawn as a wise beyond her years soul who finds herself growing up even faster as a result of the anger and betrayal she feels towards her mother. With one woman searching for the truth, another torn between love and honor and another trapped by the pain of the past, The Burning Plain contains an incredibly fascinating trio of damaged characters with never-ending wells of emotions lurking beneath their beautiful exteriors.
Like Babel, Arriaga’s most famous work, the most striking feature about The Burning Plain remains the architecture with which the director chose to tell his story. The back and forth between the past and present storylines would seem jarring, but instead works as a narrative puzzle for the viewer to put together. Asking an audience to put such a puzzle together is usually a dicey concept, which almost never works. Yet Arriaga’s strong sense of place and fine hand with characterization makes it work. By the time The Burning Plain reaches its surprisingly soulful conclusion, it becomes apparent that these are stories that had to be told in this exact way in order for each character’s journey and struggles of pain and guilt to ring true.
It’s been said that it’s tricky when a male screenwriter tries to replicate the female voice. He usually favors cliches and stereotypes rather than anything feeling authentic. Yet Arriaga is such a skilled writer, he’s not only able to give his female characters some genuine complexity, he shows how certain forms of grief and torment are not gender specific. Each character’s struggle is human and real and free of any sort of contrivances.
While every actor in The Burning Plain is perfectly cast and adds definite color to the film, the focus never leaves the three lead actresses. Theron once again proves her willingness to play damaged and unsympathetic characters. While most actresses let their beauty dominate the roles they take on, here Theron uses it almost like a weapon, masking the darkness of her broken character. Basinger, meanwhile, has always been good at playing women filled with quiet conflict, struggling to overcome. Here, the actress brings a sense of torment masked by delicate warmth in her role as a woman torn between family and romance.
Even though it was one of her earliest roles, Lawrence was such an instinctual screen actress in terms of the amount of emotion she was able to convey solely through her face. The film’s most climactic sequence has her doing some of the best work in her career to date simply through a facial expression which haunts the viewer long after the film’s end.
The Burning Plain received lukewarm receptions at both Venice and Toronto Film Festivals in 2008 before being given a low-key release the following year. The release and subsequent meek reception to the film was certainly curious given the profiles of the film’s lead actress and writer/director. As it stands today, The Burning Plain is remembered for little else other than just an early rung on Lawrence’s climb towards superstardom.
Kathryn Bigelow once said that the point of movies were to be experiential. In other words, that a movie should transport an audience member and make them feel as if they’re having a real life experience which stays with them. While I wholeheartedly agree with the idea, I believe that there are those movies which are meant to be felt rather than experienced simply through the underestimated power of emotions which, if done right, have the ability to radiate off the screen and into an audience’s soul. For me, The Burning Plain is most certainly a movie to be felt.
