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Movies / On DVD / Twentynine Palms
Twentynine Palms

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Twentynine Palms (2004)

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44 %
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Reviews Counted: 36

Fresh: 16

Rotten:20

Average Rating: 4.9/10

Consensus: A muddled and inconsequential drama.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Apr 9, 2004 Limited

Synopsis: French philosopher-turned-filmmaker Bruno Dumont follows up his award-winning drama HUMANITE with the equally devastating TWENTYNINE PALMS. Dumont's self-professed "experimental horror film"... French philosopher-turned-filmmaker Bruno Dumont follows up his award-winning drama HUMANITE with the equally devastating TWENTYNINE PALMS. Dumont's self-professed "experimental horror film" follows a couple as they journey to the California desert town of Twentynine Palms and encounter true evil. David (David Wissack), an American photographer, and his Russian girlfriend Katia (Katia Golubeva), are scouting locations for an upcoming photo shoot. During the day, they drive David's Hummer into the expansive desert and roam freely, while at night, they argue in broken French and have animalistic sex. Eventually, their luck runs out, as the outside world catches up to them and causes their tragic demise. TWENTYNINE PALMS is a jaw-droppingly brash work of art. Dumont takes a stylistic cue from French master Robert Bresson, simplifying his filmmaking technique in order to ponder deeper issues of humanity (good vs. evil, love vs. hate, sex/life vs. death). The result is a truly challenging film, which will confound and anger as many viewers as it stimulates and thrills. Like Lars von Trier's DOGVILLE, TWENTYNINE PALMS will also be accused of anti-Americanism, but Dumont's message is clearly a universal one. He uses a sparse yet familiar American landscape to subvert viewer's expectations, building to one of the most shocking finales in cinematic history. [More]

Starring: Katerina Golubeva, David Wissack

Starring: Katerina Golubeva, David Wissack

Director: Bruno Dumont

Director: Bruno Dumont
Screenwriter: Bruno Dumont
Producer: Jean Brehat
Studio: Wellspring

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Sep 21, 2004

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Twentynine Palms

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Twentynine Palms is another in a string of recent French movies in which the body is no longer sacred, a churning, jerking, oozing machine. But Dumont seems to be working toward human discovery.

Full Review Source: Paste Magazine | comment Comment
06/03/08
Robert Davis
Paste Magazine

No review available.

comment Comment
11/04/07
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

A movie full of surfaces but with exasperatingly little to say

Full Review Source: Perihelion Journal | comment Comment
10/02/06
Jay Antani
Perihelion Journal
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
07/26/05
BBC

Fascinating in the abstract but wearisome in reality.

Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | comment Comment
05/04/05
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Zap2it.com | comment Comment
12/19/04
Michael Szymanski
Zap2it.com

The talented filmmaker laid an egg with this one.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/16/04
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

It's cheap thrills in an arty package.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
08/08/04
Doris Toumarkine
Film Journal International
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: New Yorker | comment Comment
08/01/04
David Denby
New Yorker
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Both the characters and the setting are a bit of a blank here, so it's no surprise the movie is, too.

Full Review Source: Boston Herald | comment Comment
07/20/04
Paul Sherman
Boston Herald

A textbook example of how a director can strip away plot, motivation, character, and meaning and still leave arrant pretension standing tall.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
07/16/04
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Muddled.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
06/18/04
Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

French exercise in California crisis and empty existentialism manages to be pointless, dim and brutal all at once.

Full Review Source: Netflix | comment Comment
06/17/04
James Rocchi
Netflix

In Twentynine Palms, writer and director Bruno Dumont takes his cultural revenge on the United States, attacking countless American stereotypes and in the process reinforcing an equal number of cliches about arrogant French auteurs.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
06/11/04
Michael Booth
Denver Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Let's just say that Palms could shock the pants right off of you.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
06/04/04
E! Online

It's alternately monotonous, hot and dramatic, which makes for a peculiar, not entirely unsatisfying atmosphere of neo -- or is that post? -- noir.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
05/28/04
Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[Dumont] forces viewers to question not only what's on the screen, but ultimately, the very nature of reality.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
05/20/04
Bob Townsend
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[Brown Bunny] sports the narrative complexity of War and Peace compared with Twentynine Palms.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
04/27/04
Lisa Nesselson
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What Dumont expresses is too guttural and inchoate to even be called despair. It's not there yet, or else it's way past that.

Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | comment Comment
04/20/04
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks
 
 
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