He is a photographer, scouting for locations. She goes with him because they’ve fallen in love. They discover the desert around the town of Twenty-nine Palms, lose themselves in nature’s splendour, make love, and hate one another, never suspecting that the danger doesn’t only lie within themselves.

Before his foray into slapstick comedy, the surprisingly versatile Bruno Dumont was more infamous for his Bressonian austerity. The gripping, ultimately brutal Twentynine Palms, finds the French auteur in Los Angeles—of all places—delving into the darkest corners of the human soul in broad daylight.