"Twentynine Palms'" elliptical storyline features a young couple leaving Los Angeles and moving to the Southern Californian desert. That's pretty much it, it's as sparse as they come. Thereafter we only watch fragments from the couple's everyday life, which mostly includes driving around the desert and having sex. They don't talk much, and when they do it's in a half-incomprehensible and meaningless manner.
This part of the film is an exercise in existential abstraction, a distant relative of Antionioni's "the Passenger", or even Gus Van Sant's "Gerry". The most notable thing about it is the unnerving & disquieting atmosphere seeping out of the landscape, and the shadow-play of the storyline. But generally it's so-so.
Near the end, the couple gets attacked by a group of thugs (a sequence reminiscent of Gaspar Noe's shock cinema), the man is beaten up and raped while the woman watches. In the end the man murders the woman.
This completes the film's allegorical meaning: the couple as a loose metaphor for the United States, and the attack symbolising the 11/9 attacks. This allegorical level enhances the film's significance. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a worthwhile watch that makes for a refreshing change from all the Harry Potters and Lords of the Rings out there.
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