I first saw 29 palms about 15 years ago, mid Dumont binge catch up. I really couldn’t figure it. It seemed shit. Or genius.

I watched it again recently and I’m still not sure how to take it.

It seems like a total piss take of the american movie, reevaluating what the staple form of entertainment would be like “for real”

The sense of space evoked in the film is the promise of freedom, but as with

• reality, freedom is composed of endless boring moments
• american film, is subject to violence

Without the editing techniques that engender a sense of excitement, the long takes give us a sense of languid banality for most of the film. Young people lazing around and screwing as much as possible. The final parts violence is the great part of the film – in the average american film the violence is glory, but here the viewer is reduced to a voyeur participating in an obviously degrading set of scenes totally upending the expected form. The sense of the truly random nature of the initial violence from the victims perspective is at odds with the usual cinematic portrayal of violence from a protagonaist viewpoint.

Its an odd one, for me overall not as good as many of Dumont’s films eg anything from Hors Satan to Slack Bay but somehow surpasses these by leaving a lasting imprint.