Muristek
The Plains review: a three-hour film set almost entirely in a car – and it is extraordinary
In this amazing work of art, we sit behind a middle-aged lawyer on his commute as he calls his family, listens to radio and gives a lift to a colleague
Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email and listen to our podcastMany strange thoughts ping-ponged around my mind while watching David Easteal’s three-hour drama The Plains, despite nothing remotely strange occurring during it. Based in the back of a car for almost the entirety of its very hefty running time, the film captures a series of work-to-home commutes for a middle-aged lawyer, Andrew (Andrew Rakowski), who has a familiar routine: calling his mother and wife; listening to talkback radio; sitting in silence; or chatting to a colleague (Easteal, also the film’s director and writer) who he sometimes gives a lift home.
Sound interesting? Of course not. But this extraordinarily mundane film – a combination of words I’m fairly certain I’ve never used before – is a tremendous achievement and, in a subtle way, an amazing work of art. Such pared-back voyeurism provokes many interesting ideas: that drama can exist without the dramatic and that engaging narratives are everywhere around us, observable with the right eyes.
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