Broken Flowers (Fleurs Brisées)

 

 

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I enjoyed this movie until the end - rather the end that wasn't. The movie is a great ride - it's about the journey of a depressed guy who goes to visit his past lovers trying to determine if any of them gave birth to his son. It's funny and a joy to watch this character muddle through. the different people he reunites with are funny and awkard and make you laugh. There is one full frontal nudity scene which was completely unnecessary - I guess they wanted to get a "R" rating.

I first thought the director ran out of $ and just said oh heck,let's just stop here. However - I didn't know the STORY of Don Juan. The main character was watching a movie of Don Juan at the beginning of the story. His character is also referred to by Winston as a "Don Juan". In the STORY not the MOVIE of Don Juan, Don goes to hell and the devil tells him he can get out if he can name any of the women he parades by who are his past lovers. Don can't name a single one and therefore stays in hell.

So the ending of Broken Flowers is this character has made his own hell, he can't name his son (if there is one) and every young man he sees reminds him of this failure or of the fact that he is in a hell just like the character Don Juan.

Broken Flowers is about a lonely retired former womanizer played by Bill Murray. His name is Don Johnston, a "Don Juan" if you will, who receives a random letter in the mail from an unnamed former girlfriend. The letter indicates that Don has a son who has just begun a trip to search for his father. Don seems somewhat indifferent to the news but given the theme of the film it's likely that he is more tired of life and perhaps a bit self-absorbed than actual indifference, as this news is something that will eventually serve to re-awaken Don and perhaps it gives him just the self-interest he needs to live life with renewed vigor. In that sense, the story of Don is an existential tale more so than one with a conventional end. The film offers us means to complete a nice story of a father's union with his son that he's never met. But director Jim Jarmusch is not conventional and he is too smart to throw such a trivial narrative our way.

At the suggestion and great enthusiasm of his friend and neighbor Winston, Don is convinced that the search for this former girlfriend and the mother of his son is a worthy undertaking. So he goes off to find five of his former girlfriends at the time his son would've been born (about 20 years ago). One, Michelle, has passed away and he visits her grave and seems to express more reverence for her than the others...he even tells Winston he loved Michelle and she is the only one he says that about. Another is Laura played by Sharon Stone. Don gets to sleep with Laura again and he doesn't seem as surprised as I was when Laura's flirty teen daughter Lolita walks about the house in nothing but her epidermis. Her overt sexuality probably mirrors that of her mother's and Don seems unfazed by it...great dead pan acting once again by Bill Murray. Dora is another former girlfriend and she is played by Frances Conroy. Dora seems to contain an underlying regret in her decision to choose a lifestyle completely different than the one she practiced when Don met her. Jessica Lange plays another former girlfriend who works as an animal communicator. All three of these women seem to initially react quite positively to Don and are pleasantly surprised to see him, but they are still interesting and unique in their own ways. Finally, Penny is played by Tilda Swinton and seems to be the only former girlfriend that is really disgusted with seeing Don. I won't reveal how Don's journey ends but I will say that he is given an opportunity to reflect on his life during his travels, and that is something he badly needed.

Perhaps Broken Flowers doesn't ask that we read into the clues as to who sent the letter and if Don will find his son. If you look carefully in the credits and perhaps watch the movie again you will find some decent resolution to those questions but that isn't necessarily what Jarmusch is telling us about Don. Broken Flowers is not about a father meeting his son as much as it is about a man becoming a father.

To note further on the film's content, I must say that I always enjoy the atmosphere of a Jarmusch film, as much as they may require a bit of patience. Some will find it to be a slow movie but it is both fascinating and funny. In my humble opinion, it also happened to have the best soundtrack of 2005.

Near the end of this film, a young man who might be Don Johnston's (Bill Murray's) son asks for a bit of philosophical wisdom from a fellow traveler. What he gets (see the title for this review) is not original but probably appropriate for one who gets described by almost everyone else as a "Don Juan." That is, of course, the idea behind the famous romancer: that romantic love and sex are all about the here and now (that is why romantic love and marriage are such uneasy "bed partners": the best that romantic love can offer is an unimaginable "happily ever after" because the real future is not so romantic).

The response, "what are you, a Buddhist?" is a deliberate jab on the part of Jarmusch at this philosophical approach that says everything and nothing. The irony is that this film will likely be appreciated for its moments more than for what I take to be its underlying critique of the "philosophy of the moment" (a version of an existentialist philosophy).

Because Don lives in the moment, he cannot really act -- he has no character. What he does is merely a reaction to those he is with -- he is for others just what they expect to see in him. He lets his actions be dictated to him by his neighbor. He never describes himself in this film but is described by others: as a Don Juan, as Don Johnson, as a rich man, as a computer guy. It's significant for this question of labels that Don made his money in computers but refuses to have one in his house. That would define him. He doesn't like any labels to stick: even when he thinks he's found his son he tells him not that he is his father but merely admits that he might seem like that to the boy. (This issue of labelling is fairly complex in the film: most everyone in the film can be labeled and even accepts a label - Lolita, the real estate agent, the pet communicator; note though that Don's neighbor isn't easily labeled -- he's a Jamaican family man with three jobs who fancies himself a detective but whose daughter insists he can't be identified with any of the "famous detective" labels that Don tries to pin on him.)

The idea of having a son is precisely what he has to reject if he is going to hold on to his philosophy: because to be a father is to have an inescapable past, a moment that defines you essentially in relation to another person, and to have a future that is bound up with the vicissitudes of that other person's life. At the end of the film, though, in the first real show of feeling and passion Don begins to want such a connection -- as if in despair over his own lack of identity. The ambiguity of the ending captures this despair in a simple and powerful way. A very fine film, well worth the ride -- with an incredibly cool Jamaican jazzy soundtrack.

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4.0 out of 5 stars What's not to like about Bill Murray?
Bill Murray's recent movies (Lost in translation, Broken flowers... etc) are amazing and fun to watch. Read more

Published on Dec 20 2008 by Winston

1.0 out of 5 stars Even worse than "Lost In Translation"
I was very angry after I watched this movie because I spent what felt like 4hours watching it. Nothing happens! Nothing! The plot went nowhere. Nothing was discovered. Read more

Published on Mar 2 2006

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