Burn Country

I love weird , interesting 'indie' films that most people dislike but this was a real mess. I went in with an open mind, and little to no expectations and ending up getting nothing out of this. I even read several explanations of what the film meant, what it portrayed but felt completely clueless to why anyone would want to watch this. Bizarre and disconnected

The sound track is just kind of amazing, the off kilter manner of filming, and some evocative performances add to the unusual atmospheric hum. The little bit of time ive spent deep in the red woods off the beaten track north and west of cultured wine country, and other remote rural places make the setting relatable.

But then again i like off beat film far better than multplex clickbait.

Ian Olds made the documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. It showed the working relationship between journalist Christian Parenti and his Afghan colleague Ajmal Naqshbandi during the Afghan War. Naqshbandi was killed by the Taliban.

In this feature film, Osman (Dominic Rains) is a fixer/interpreter to an American journalist now living in rural northern California having been granted asylum status.

Osman lives with the mother of his American journalist friend who obviously loves the thrill of being a war reporter. His mom Gloria (Melissa Leo) is a cop and Osman is very much a surrogate son to her.

Osman needs to fit in, he gets a low paid job as a crime reporter and is very much a fish out of water as he encounters the low life in the town, not far from being hillbillies. One of them is Lindsay (James Franco) who when sober can construct the best hot tubs but disappears and might have killed someone.

Osman also meets some hippy types who treat him nice but underneath there might also be tension as they test his masculinity being a displaced person.

The story was weak and far fetched. There is a film to be told of an Afghan asylum seeker trying to fit in his host country. Here Osman covers up for Lindsay a man he hardly knows and who beat him up when they first met. He then later gets in a fight with some gangster types. The plot just stretched credibility.

Imagine you, a journalist, were kicked out of your country to seek asylum seeker in a land that you know nothing about. What you do know has been told to you by an American journalist that you became friendly with from your time as war correspondent in your own country, Afghanistan. Now, you are staying with your journalist friend's mother, who happens to be a sheriff in Burn County, everything is new, you speak English, but you aren't aware of customs or mores in you new country, folks you meet are friendly but strange, but you go on a ride along with the sheriff, while she breaks up a family disturbance between husband and his wife, you watch, then pull the husband back when he goes for the wife while she is screaming at him. The fight ends, you go back to your new home. Next day you are out and the husband happens upon you, picks you up, you become new friends. Still, as a newcomer, you know nobody, really, not even the mother of your friend. Many of these instances you happen to be privy to, makes no sense to you, it's not anything you have run into in your own country, but that's totally understandable. This movie is a portrait of what newcomers might see when they come to parts of America. Often what seems to be the usual behavior, and/or business as usual, seems totally bizarre to others. I believe that they told the story beautifully, from the POV of the newcomer and the often confusing manner that some folks in America live.

I loved the idea of a movie highlighting the weirdness of far Northern, Coastal California. I also loved the notion the fact that our lead escaped one crazy version of human nature (Afghanistan), only to find another crazy version in California of all places.

Not that much happens. But the lead guy was mesmerizingly good in his portrayal of an awkward, deeply sensitive, almost dorky newcomer to a country and town that he doesn't understand at all.

He's so earnest in wanting to fit in and be hip. But he's in way over his head. Small rural communities have long histories, and in the case of this place, exceedingly weird ones. He hasn't been there long enough to understand the complexity. Yet you really feel for his dilemma. He wants to get a life and a profession, and do something meaningful. He's itching for it.

Melissa Leo is great as the mother of an old friend of our lead. She's an unemotional deputy sheriff, but also a mother and woman. She comes off very natural.

The opening is extremely weird, yet quite effective, because a bizarre stage play leads our main character to view it as "very free and very American." by virtue of its' weirdness.

James Franco is overexposed. I couldn't buy him as the weird town slacker, because I just kept thinking, "Oh that's just James Franco." He was probably miscast anyways.

Nevertheless, I liked it for its originality, and I don't regret watching. But beware for some violence. I could have done without it.