The Burning Plain
| The Burning Plain | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Guillermo Arriaga |
| Produced by |
Walter F. Parkes Laurie MacDonald |
| Written by | Guillermo Arriaga |
| Starring |
Charlize Theron Kim Basinger Jennifer Lawrence Joaquim de Almeida |
| Music by |
Omar Rodríguez-López Hans Zimmer |
| Cinematography | Robert Elswit |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $5.5 million |
The Burning Plain is a 2008 drama film directed and written by Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter of Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and Babel (2006). The film stars Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Basinger and Joaquim de Almeida. In Arriaga's directorial debut, he films a story that has multipart story strands woven together as in his previous screenplays. Filming of The Burning Plain began in New Mexico in November 2007, and the film was released in late 2008 in various festivals, before a limited theatrical release in 2009.
Typical of Arriaga's works, this film is told in a non-linear narrative, where events are revealed out of sequence. The following plot summary is in chronological order, and thus does not reflect the exact sequence of the events as seen on screen.
The story starts some time during the mid-1990s in a small town near Las Cruces, New Mexico (close to the border with Mexico), where we are introduced to Gina (Kim Basinger), a wife and mother to four children. Gina is having an affair with a local man named Nick Martinez (Joaquim de Almeida), who also has a family of his own; but, unbeknownst to the two, Gina's teenage daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) finds out about their love affair. Mariana follows her mother to Nick's trailer. Knowing the two are inside; and, in an effort to make them end their affair, she disconnects the gas pipe leading into the trailer and sets it on fire. The flames eventually reach a gas tank, which explodes, consuming the entire trailer and claiming Nick's and Gina's lives, although Mariana had no intention of killing either of them. After their funeral, Mariana and Nick's teenage son, Santiago (JD Pardo), slowly begin to develop a relationship of their own. Mariana soon becomes aware that she is pregnant with Santiago's daughter. The two flee to Mexico amid disapproval from their families and decide to have the baby there; but, after she gives birth to their daughter, Mariana abandons her family and changes her name to Sylvia.
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