Richard Kuipers The “dead time” of the daily commute comes alive in “The Plains,” an absorbing documentary-drama hybrid that places viewers in the car of a middle-aged Melbourne lawyer during his drive home from work during the course of a year.
Skilfully creating an engaging and likable protagonist without fully showing his face until the three-hour running time has all but elapsed, David Easteal’s first feature is a thematically rich and quietly compelling portrait of a man at the crossroads.
Although an extremely difficult commercial path lies ahead, this epic-length existentialist road movie should enjoy a strong festival run following its world premiere at Rotterdam.Occasionally punctuated by views of flat, treeless plains that give the film its title and shed light on the central character’s life choices and relationships, “The Plains” is essentially a single-location drama.
Almost the entire film is seen through the lens of a camera fixed to the back seat of a car driven by Andrew Rakowski from his office in southeast Melbourne toward a home that is never revealed.
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