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| Volume 11, No. 19 |
February 3-9, 2010 |
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| ‘The Burning Plain’
Charlize Theron, “Babel” screenwriter, Mars Volta guitarist join efforts to make buzz-garnering Movie shot and set on border | | By Leonard Martinez | | 
Passion drives Guillermo Arriaga. It has driven him to write the scripts for “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” and “Babel,” three of the more critically acclaimed films in the last 10 years.
Passion also led him to fall in love with Las Cruces and the surrounding area while shooting his directorial debut, “The Burning Plain.” He loves Las Cruces so much he said he’s considering buying a house there.
“I was trying to honor this area,” Arriaga said. “I am particularly fond in general of the Southwest. This is my favorite. I would not have shot it here if it were not my favorite.”
Arriaga was in Mesilla last weekend for a special screening of “The Burning Plain” at the Fountain Theatre. The film, like Arriaga’s previous screenplays, is a nonlinear narrative following different story lines. It stars Charlize Therone, Kim Basinger and Jennifer Lawrence.
Arriaga said one of the reasons he wanted to make the film in the Las Cruces area is because he is tired of the area being known only for drugs and immigration.
“We wanted to portray the life here and the contradictions,” Arriaga said. “It’s also a place of love stories. Mexicans fell in love with Americans and Americans with Mexicans. There’s friendship between Mexicans and Americans. There are other kinds of bondings rather than selling drugs and smuggling people. And of course there are tensions because of it, but that’s not the only reality. So, we wanted to portray it in that way.”
The film is resonating with audiences and there’s the real possibility it could result in Oscar nominations, but Arriaga was skittish to talk about that. The only time he let some of the Oscar talk slip into the conversation was when he talked about Lawrence’s performance. Lawrence won the Marcello Mastroianni Award, given to the best emerging actor or actress, at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.
“I was telling her, ‘You have to work with me again even if you have your 10,000 Oscar nominations,’” Arriaga said. “If you read the reviews, everyone praises her.”
Aside from the film festivals and opening in Europe, Mesilla is one of the first cities in the U.S. to have a screening of “The Burning Plain.”
Jeff Berg, board member of the Mesilla Valley Film Society, said he saw the film at a Seattle Film Festival where the audience had a strong reaction to the film.
“It was a 650-seat theater. It was packed and they gave it a standing ovation,” said Berg, who called the film “a thinking person’s dramatic romance.”
It also received an 11-minute, 36-second standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Arriaga is happy the film is getting standing ovations, but he doesn’t mind if audiences hate the film, too.
“We have wonderful reviews in Italy and Spain, very good reviews in England,” Arriaga said. “Here in America, we are having very intense ‘yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.’ It’s completely enthusiastic, but the enthusiasm goes both (ways), hate and love.
It’s a film that provokes. I personally think that when a movie causes a reaction so intense, it is because it is alive. It is horrible when your movie is like ‘Hmmm.’ ‘I hate your movie! I don’t like it. It’s blah, blah, blah!’ Good, man, I provoked something in you.”
The man who scored the film, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of The Mars Volta, is no stranger to polarizing opinions. Some people instantly love his band’s music, while for others it takes getting used to, if they ever do get used to it. Arriaga calls The Mars Volta the most important rock group in the world right now. Rodriguez-Lopez scored the “The Burning Plain” with Hans Zimmer.
“This guy, Omar Rodriguez, is like something between Chopin and Jimi Hendrix,” Arriaga said. “He is very talented. “You would never imagine that it’s this guy that plays this kind of very hard rock. It was mellow and beautiful music. We tried to make it eclectic. It’s not a typical score.”
“The Burning Plain” is the second film Arriaga and Rodriguez-Lopez have worked on together. The first, a Mexican film called “The Night Buffalo,” was based on a novel by Arriaga. Arriaga produced the film.
“We became good friends,” Arriaga said. “Now, by obligation, he has to do the music of every film I direct.”
“The Burning Plain” opens nationally this month but is not expected to be shown in this area until it has a weeklong run at the Fountain Theatre in November. Those who can’t wait to see the film in a theater can rent it through Amazon.com’s Video on Demand feature for $9.99, for a two-day rental and watch it on their computer at home.
“If you like the film, please recommend it to 30 people – that’s the magic number,” Arriaga said. “If you don’t like the film, you always can bring 30 enemies to the film, but that’s the magic number. A movie survives only by word of mouth. If the critic says it’s so bad, but your best friend says ‘no man, it’s good,’ who will you pay attention to? The critic or your best friend?”
Learn more about the film and see the trailer at burningplainmovie.com. Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language.
Comments or questions about this story? E-mail Secret@whatsuppub.com
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