the boundaries of loneliness

Guillermo Arriaga, the guy who wrote the trilogy Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, always had a movie nominated for an Oscar. In 2005 he won best screenplay at Cannes for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, so we can only praise his talent. The Burning Plain marks his directorial debut and even though it was ignored by the Academy, the movie is a great success. The colors, the light, the photography, the sound, the scenery and the actors’ performances are all beautiful. The four elements are present: fire, water, wind and earth. And each presents us with a story. In his previous movies, there were often several stories that intertwined at some point. Except, this time we only have one story, which makes a film with no sense of time, space, borders or languages. A story where past and present meet, a movie about the meaning of scars, remembrance and forgiveness. Where love and passion are forbidden and at the same time unstoppable. Where poor and wealthy are no different because we are all human; we are all worth the same. And so meet Sylvia, a successful woman, great at living, great at what she does, but all she really wants to do is die. She always wears gray. She thinks so little of herself as to think she doesn’t deserve motherhood, afraid the baby would turn out like her. How troubled can one be to become addicted to human drugs like hormones, adrenaline, orgasms, etc? The ones we release when we self inflict pain to our bodies. What terrible thing could anyone have done to feel like an empty object that can be used and abused? Hoping a quick orgasm would fill in the emptiness and make us feel better for a little while. Then meet Gina, a loving mother and wife, who battled with cancer two years prior, who had a breast removed and finds it difficult to feel sexy, to cope with the loss and the new herself, whose husband can’t make love to her anymore because she’s one breast short. Can anyone blame her for getting a lover? A passionate man who makes her the center of the universe. Can you blame her for wanting to feel alive? She keeps her affair going so powerful as to leave her family in a parking lot under the burning sun of Arizona so she wouldn’t miss a tryst. Is it luck to die while doing what you like the most? Finally, meet Mariana, modern-day Electra, a young girl who discovers a great secret and who carries one of her own. Who, as I, loved her mother very much but did not like her. Who nourishes a love so strong as to not know if it is right or wrong only know that it is real. Who does what most people wouldn’t understand and hides until life catches up with her. Daughters killing mothers, mothers abandoning babies, modern-day Cain and Abel coming to the rescue. I sometimes wish my mother had left me when I was a child. Holy smoke of burnt chollas, purify us.