Man of Flowers

A terrifically watchable film, so different from Hollywood style movies that stick to a set pattern. Funny, riveting and erotic in parts, this is a true classic that deserves wider recognition. Alyson Best's strip must be the best opening scene in any film!

A wonderful slow, gentle film, full of strange characters. I loved the eccentricities of all the characters; the mad painter, the crazy psychiatrist, the main character, Charles, who is obsessed by flowers. Even the postman who delivers the letters Charles sends to himself every day is delightful. The characters are surrounded by wonderful images and the background music is absolutely divine. The rather freudian storyline follows the relationships between Charles, a rich eccentric artist, a young woman he pays to strip for him and her violent boyfriend. I liked the strength of Charles's character despite his gentleness, which leads to a good twist at the end. I loved it.

A middle-aged man is unable to have relationships with women, apparently a byproduct of his strict upbringing we learn via flashbacks. It is by turns provocative, funny, and pretentious, but always interesting and definitely quirky. Kaye is well cast as the man-child in search of beauty while Best is lovely as one of the objects of his affection. Among the amusing characters are the philosophical postman and Best's hack artist boyfriend. Cox directs with a sense of freshness, helped considerably by the ever-present music from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." The flashback scenes of Kaye's childhood are tinged with Oedipal feelings, simultaneously sad and erotic.

I've seen many films by Paul Cox but only one or two continue to impress me after all these years - Man of Flowers (1983) is one of them. Taking on familiar Cox themes such as loneliness and sexual repression, Man of Flowers adds an eloquent European feel to its Australian setting. Although the story is not a conventional linear narrative, Cox combines distinctive visual tones (super-8 flashbacks/ conventional framing such as the striptease at the beginning)) to capture different aspects of the protagonist's reclusive life (played by Norman Kaye). What is unique about this film is its refusal to subscribe to any cinematic norm. Thus we get a philosophical postman who adds a touch of off-centered eccentricity to an already edgy patchwork of lesbianism, blackmail and oedipal longing. The only sad aspect of the film is its low-budget which has seriously impaired its standing as a classic. The sound is not the best on VHS although the operatic score (Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor) more than compensates for this flaw. I presume the original budget of $250,000 was not spent enhancing the sound quality.

It's no surprise, you'll find Man Of Flowers one of the oddest films you've ever see. A rich lonely man, Norman Kaye, fantastic as, loves arty things. He plays piano, studies flowers, art, pays to watch beautiful young women like Alyson Best disrobe, in the opening scene. Not there's nothing wrong with the latter, although I wouldn't pay a hundred smackaroos. But in our Charles Bremmer, is an underlying picture of a lonely and mentally sick man. He posts letters to his dead mother. His psychiatrist isn't any help either, telling Charles he's doing the same thing as well as informing him that the rates are going up. One thing Charles has a lot of, is money. The scene with his shrink is my favorite among a few others. He forms a friendship with Best, that borders on a sexual one. Best though too has a lesbian lover, in one frank scene of nudity, one thing this film doesn't hold back on. Another scene, a droll timeless one, involves Kaye, in the raw, standing up in a spa bath, telling a doctor on the phone, his problems, like how he loves to smell his studies flowers, and wait till you hear how he replies. Just another guy that doesn't understand our poor Charles and his predictament. Best has an abusive ex boyfriend (Haywood-good as always) a struggling artist, who lives in the studio in the city. One scene sees him having an argument with a client on the phone, while nibbling on a yo yo biscuit, is another treasured scene. Haywood, one of Aussie's great actors is great at portraying anger, it had me rewatching the scene a few times as other ones. When Best moves in with Charles she invites her lesbian lover over, where Charles explains a exercise they must do, where Charles starts by quoting, "I've been told by doctors in the higher field". He even gets a pool installed, tent and all, I found intriguing. I really wanted Best to end up with Charles, but the end just reminds us lonely folk, as we stand apart from our other lonely peers while looking out to sea, loneliness can sometimes to be an inevitably, especially if we're not willing to do anything about it, or keep turning people away. The scenes that really got up my goat, I had to fast forward, were flashbacks played against operatic music. But they're not all bad. One shows Charles as a kid outside with a slingslot, breaking one of the front windows, where the father comes running out after him. Another of the weird scenes has Charles having quite a peculiar conversation with you're not ordinary mailman, who prewarns him about the consequences of not paying gas bills. A lot of scenes in this film are odd, as it's other characters, that are not of the regular norm, but they're funny. Another odd scene, is when he's sketching a nude artist-guess who? His teacher-Julia Blake, goes off at him, as he's drawing flowers instead. What's this preoccupation with flowers? Man Of Flowers is odd, but with it's oddness, is it's originality that I liked. This one deserves it's place up against Bliss, though it's not gonna appeal to all tastes. It's one of the most uniquely beautiful and oddest Aussie films you'll see, with great performances to boot.