IMAGINE a Sergio Leone spaghetti western set in the Argentinian jungle with a mystical vibe and an environmental message. That about sums up Pablo Fendrik’s surreal drama in which a brooding, tattooed Gael Garcia Bernal — who also produced the film — emerges from the rainforest to come to the rescue of a poor farmer’s beautiful daughter (Alice Braga), kidnapped by the mercenaries who murdered her father to take possession of his farmland. 

The Burning’s a film of very few words but endlessly long and smouldering looks between Bernal and Braga which culminates in a bizarre, steamy jungle sex scene. It tentatively explores the theme man versus nature and how we are destroying the planet’s forests and their inhabitants.

Bernal’s mysterious character Kai declares “we shouldn’t be here” and there are shots of a stunning but pissed-off looking tiger trying to reclaim his home. In the end, the mythical aura that Fendrik tries to instil in his “Mesopotamic” western doesn’t really work, while the final showdown between Bernal and the leader of the mercenaries is a cinematic hoot.