Wildflowers

Having grown up in the Bay Area (where this film is set, just over the golden gate) in similar communal conditions with parents and guides of the same Vietnam-protesting vagabond/artist generation, I was stunned by the grace and accuracy of this film. The cinematography alone was breathtaking, and with substance to play with like the eucalyptus forests of Marin, the bookshelf lined cafe district of North Beach San Francisco, the misty Pacific coast, and Darryl Hannah (!), I can say without a breath of doubt they did something very magical a whole lotta justice.

Hannah's character reeked of a wild wanderlust and a seemingly disorienting excess of love and passion that it seemed as though the bounds of the film itself were keeping her in a captivity that was at the same time thrilling and unbearable. As Darryl Hannah grows older, her incredible grace and growling intricacies are all the more heart-stopping.

Though she plays a painfully awkward character, Clea DuVall performs her character wholly (alongside a perfect cast, including still-unknown Richard Hillman). I applaud the author for letting herself be drawn so harshly and honestly in the character of Cally, a seventeen year-old victim of a young parental generation that, though highly effective for the more curious and fervid of us, carelessly left to the wayside the sons and daughters that needed a bit more than just freedom and an echoing concert hall.

This is a beautiful film about real people spanning two generations -- that of the counterculture of the sixties, and the children they bore, and then reared or abandoned. There is a refreshing absence of sixties-bashing, stereotypical characters, phony hippie artifacts, false emotion, and all the other trappings of Indie or Hollywood films desperately searching for an audience. This is a novel on film. I'm grateful to the film-makers because I had despaired of ever seeing the lives we led ever portrayed realistically on film.

I am pleased to see such a well-made film come out of such limited resources. The boat where I lived was briefly featured in the scenes where the women jumped/were thrown into the water. Seeing my beloved Marin shot so carefully, so richly, was most satisfying.

The music was also quite touching and appropriate.

I liked the story, but one criticism is that the pacing was too languid. It could've had more ebb and flow in the timing, and perhaps a stronger story ellipse.

Otherwise, I'm happy to see the communal counter-culture accurately represented, by somebody who knows it from the inside. I look forward to seeing more work by Clea and Mellissa.

From the opening moments, this film promises to be unlike any of the slick, commercial "product" being made today. The style of the film harkens back to the turbulent, adventurous, somewhat dangerous times of the 1960s and the movie itself reveals how the events of days gone by continue to reverberate through the lives of the following generation. The photography is breathtaking; the editing is masterful; the performances far more than memorable. This is possibly one of Daryll Hannah's finest character portrayals. The story is a very private one -- yet it reaches out to touch the experiences of many who were swept up by the events of a certain time. It has the startling ring of truth throughout. The beautiful ... the sublime ... the tragic ... the heart-breaking. For those whose lives have spanned this period, this is an unforgettably compelling film journey.

Well there goes another hour and a half down the drain with nothing to show for it. I like quiet films as much as anybody but this film was soooooo quiet that it would be a great alternative to taking a sleeping aid. I did like the photography in this film but that is all I did like about it.