Under the Burning Sun is the sort of film usually reserved for mad men: Mad Max, to be exact. Though women have blazed this trail before—Furiosa comes to mind—this violent and surreal trip across a nameless desert is produced by and features a woman. And she has an agenda.
Under the Burning Sun is a dark night of the soul. Director Yun Xie was inspired in writing it by her mother’s harrowing story and fashioned it into a piercing cry for all women. Chinese born and sharpening her skills at SVA in New York City, Ms. Xie has tackled a heavy topic—a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—by crossing Thelma and Louise with El Topo. Under the Burning Sun is Ms. Xie’s first feature film.
Mowanza is a young woman carrying her rapist’s child. On a postapocalyptic landscape she first consults with an outlaw doctor who confirms her pregnancy but refuses to perform the illegal abortion. Mowanza, played with gravitas by Stephanie Pardi, takes her fate into her own hands: she tries to induce a miscarriage—unsuccessfully—and so gets into her souped-up car to find someone in this wasteland who will perform the procedure.
Cue the allegories: Mowanza encounters a plethora of desperate characters, including various assailants, vicious dogs, brutal (male) shop owners, a Handmaid’s Tale -style sect, and a beguiling woman named Mavis (Stephanie Kincheloe). In Ms. Xie’s imagined world, the men are headless: they’re there but reduced to gestures, either seen from the back or their heads cropped out of frame. This landscape is populated by abused mothers and abandoned children; men are dispatched quickly and bloodily.
Under the Burning Sun looks gorgeous. Yun Xie’s composition, aided by Tianyi Wang’s cinematography, is visceral and dreamlike. Each sundrenched frame is stunningly arranged, the detritus and grime of the desert clinging to characters so realistically you might find yourself brushing it off. Each frame is an exquisite film still on its own.
It’s when the images move that there’s problems. Ms. Xie’s overall conceit is unyielding, and it shackles the actors. They are props, physically beautiful but not very skilled actors. Much depends on Stephanie Pardi’s glowering protagonist, and while Ms. Pardi’s mien is striking, her performance doesn’t show much nuance. Dialogue is stilted, with many lines delivered off-camera, dubbed in post. At crucial points, as when Mowanza sums up the theme by telling her unborn child “I just don’t want you to become us,” the actor’s face is averted, the line inserted after principal photography. Likewise, the foley (sound effects) work is grating and inexpert, as if the sound embellishments belong to another movie.
But Yun Xie can’t be faulted for ambition. She has an eye and an attitude. These days, it’s the rare film that displays such blunt politics. She shoots high, and even though the cinematic beauty of Under the Burning Sun is incongruous to its missteps, she should be applauded for taking chances. If she goes on, she will be a force to reckon with.
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Under the Burning Sun. Directed by Yun Xie. 2025. Runtime 75 minutes.