Twentynine Palms

Twentynine Palms follows David, a photographer, and Katia, his girlfriend, as they leave Los Angeles for the California desert. He is scouting locations for a magazine shoot, and the two of them settle into a motel in the small town of Twentynine Palms, driving out day after day into the emptiness around Joshua Tree National Park. Their relationship swings between sex, arguments and reconciliation, but it lacks any real closeness, and the isolation of the landscape wears on them. The trip ends abruptly with a violent incident.

Bruno Dumont directed and wrote the film, which sits between his earlier features and Flanders, the next film he made. It was produced by Rachid Bouchareb and Jean Bréhat through 3B Productions, The 7th Floor and Thoke Moebius Film Company, and was shot in Germany, the United States and France. Yekaterina Golubeva plays Katia, and David Wissak plays David.

The film runs just under two hours. On TMDB it holds a rating of 5.1 out of 10 from 113 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 5 out of 10 from 40 reviews, so critics and audiences rate it similarly, both near the middle of the scale, suggesting a divisive but not widely embraced film.