Well this one definitely isn't for everyone, as you can tell by the comments. For awhile, I liked this movie. I kind of liked these two driving around in the desert. The movie had that sort of dreamlike Zabriskie Point thing going on. In fact, along those lines, I'd mention that the film did feel like something from the 1960s (in a good way).
Katia Golubeva is a pretty enough girl, and we see a lot of her.
I know from regular trips to Death Valley that Europeans have a special respect for American deserts. At Badwater Junction in Death Valley, you can walk out onto the salty flats and despite the fact that you're in a giant valley, they know enough to whisper, or remain silent altogether. It's a pensive respect for the desert I wish more Americans had.
Here, you get a lot of California desert; always a good thing (to me). I liked these two characters when they were getting along - there was a weird and charming sort of innocence in their sex life and affection for each other.
Didn't fully get why they were constantly sniping at one another or why they kept having falling outs with each other. And that seems to be important to the overall point of the film, and I'm still thinking about it. I wanted to slap them - especially David - when he was being a jerk.
Because you should *never* take a sexually liberated French girl naked in the desert for granted that way (Am I right?).
The end is jarring, and a metaphor for something but I'm not sure what, exactly. Something, I suspect, about the fact that the two characters should have been a little more tender and appreciated each other more (especially on the dude's part), what with all the meanness and cruelty in the world (and so on).
This is not for everyone. It is slow moving, beautiful to look at, with characters who occasionally charm and occasionally irritate. The end sequence is disturbing and unpleasant.
If you're a fan of mainstream Hollywood, you might find this excruciatingly boring. The pervasive quiet of the movie makes the end all the more startling.
This film was not an unqualified success, but there's a fair amount to like here, I think. For certain people, anyway.
