Review of Man of Flowers (1983) by Mark A — 16 Oct 2010

This virtually unnoticed drama holds what is certainly among the most captivating opening scenes ever committed to film.

A perfectly suited, middle-aged man (Kaye) sits formally in his black leather chair, stoically absorbing the room of sensual pleasure he has crafted: gorgeous floral arrangements, sculptures and paintings, while a lush aria plays and an ingenue (Best) slowly disrobes down to her pearl necklace. Then, with the slightest of glance and touch to his temple, the viewer realizes that, for Kaye, there is a cruel ennui, a certain impotence, in all that he has assembled.

The scene is the opening gambit in a character study that slowly slips ever deeper down into the Freudian rabbit hole that is Kaye's asocial psyche, toward the childhood that has brought him to this, his artistic but cloistered, lonely and unsatisfying existence.

Soon enough, the relationship deepens and Kaye is confronted with the decision as to whether it will be his own compulsively perfect world - or Best's, saddled with sexual ambiguity and her cokehead wannabe-painter live-in (Haywood) - that he will choose to live.

There's a lot of topic on deck here - how adulthood is forged from childhood, what is life's greatest beauty, what May gains from May-December, the torture that middle-aged loneliness can be.

Unique, unusual, intellectual, visual, poignant are all more-than-fair adjectives for this film. The film does plod along at points, especially when wading through far too many enigmatic, heavy-handed and redundant childhood flashbacks, and so some patience is required of the viewer.

RECOMMENDATION: "Man of Flowers" looks like a Criterion resto job just waiting to happen. True film buffs shouldn't wait.