California through French eyes

When French filmmaker Bruno Dumont’s “Twentynine Palms” debuted last summer on the festival circuit, audience response was extreme. Walkouts and guffaws during sex scenes and virulent booing at the film’s conclusion were met by contrarian applause and shouts of “Bravo!”

“Twentynine Palms” stars David Wissak as an L.A. photographer and Katia Golubeva as his French-speaking girlfriend. The couple take a road trip to Joshua Tree and the Southern California desert town of the title, and the vast scenery creates a vaguely menacing context. Ninety minutes of stark images and ennui, permeated with sporadic squabbles and intense lovemaking, are followed by a shocking 20-minute finale.

“Twentynine Palms” is Dumont’s third feature, following the “The Life of Jesus” and “Humanite.” He knew this one was experimental and expected a polarized response.

The director’s idea to make what feels like a foreign film (it’s mainly in French with English subtitles) in the hardscrabble region off California Highway 62 stemmed from location scouting he did in 1999. Having made two films in the north of France, he was looking “to change atmospheres, ingredients, colors, etc.” The landscape so impressed him, he made a subsequent visit and wrote a screenplay in two weeks, a process, he notes, that normally takes two years.

“The experience of cinema is like viewing a painting or a sculpture,” says Dumont, a former professor of philosophy. By neutralizing the typical ingredients he emphasizes the atmosphere. “The film,” he says, “becomes something like an abstract painting.”

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“Twentynine Palms” runs Friday through April 15. Unrated. Landmark Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles. (310) 281-8223.