The movie is available for streaming in four parts, each over three hours long. In the first scene, director Mariano Llinás states: the film comprises six stories, four without an ending, one without a beginning and one with both. Four actresses, Elisa Carricajo, Valeria Correa, Pilar Gamboa and Laura Paredes star in all stories (except one). The title La Flor (The Flower) comes from a diagram the director sketches on a notepad.
Story 1 (Part 1, minutes 4 to 83: 79 minutes). By the director's claim this is an homage to an American B-movie which, he says, "Americans used to do with their eyes closed but they cannot do any more." The subject (malignant mummy) certainly fits the description. There are a few amusing scenes that will induce déjà vu in Argentinians. There is actually an end of sorts, mercifully a joke.
Story 2 (Part 1, minutes 83 to 222: 139 minutes). Defined as a musical. In fact, it evokes the feeling of the various versions of A Star is Born. A couple undergoing a bitter breakup need to reunite to write and record a new album; their separate records were not hits. Midway through, a mutual friend of the couple is found to have strange associations and the movie switches to the mad scientist(s) genre.
Story 3 (Part 2, minutes 0 to 205 and Part 3, minutes 0 to 126: 331 minutes). A riff on spy movies. Three (actually four) attractive women spies with a male handler, the women sleekly dressed in black, waving guns around and dispensing karate kicks obviously evoke Charlie's Angels and in fact much of the movie (like the first scene) is of comic strip or old TV series level. Action in many countries with an omniscient narrator pontificating endlessly. There is some material on what makes a person become a spy, but it is drowned in a five hour torrent. The ending which is not an ending seeks to evoke a Leone - Morricone western.
Story 4 (Part 3, minutes 130 to 216 and Part 4, minutes 2 to 105: 189 minutes). We see Llinás and his crew as they film the segment we are watching. The director becomes obsessed with filming lapacho trees. Evidence of a Lovecraftian tree uprising mounts and director and crew have a confrontation with a tree that drives them all mad. A psychologist/investigator is sent to find out what happened. This story is perhaps the funniest, with much self-parody. The screen director is obsessive about silly details, unable to communicate clearly, disdainful of scripts and organization in general and has a love/abuse relationship with his four actresses. Unfortunately, the story eventually explodes into incoherence involving old books, Arthur Machen, demonic cults and Casanova.
After the end of Story 4 we come back to the scenario at the beginning; a picnic table in a grove of trees near a steel pipe structure. The director informs: we are about to see Story 5, a silent parody of (or homage to) Renoir's Partie de Campagne and Story 6 called The Captive.
Story 5 (Part 4, minutes 110 to 157: 47 minutes). The parody/homage consists of black & white soundless scenes approaching or duplicating Renoir's, adapted to the Argentine countryside and to contemporary dress. Near the end we see a stirring exhibition of aerobatics and we hear snatches of Renoir's dialogue and music from the original.
Story 6 (Part 4, minutes 157 to 183: 26 minutes). Old books again; this time Remembrances of a Captive Englishwoman in the Plains of South America (1900, in Spanish) by Sarah S. Evans. It narrates the escape of Evans and another three women from captivity in Indian territory. This part alternates titles (photographed from the book) with blurry, saturated, almost static scenes.
End titles (Part 4, minutes 181 to 220: 39 minutes). Titles are projected over an upside down shot of the crew cleaning up. Image turns right side up at minute 207.
Obviously, there have to be reasons to watch a 13+ hour movie. I don't see any. The words that a viewing evokes are: hubris, pretentiousness, digression, lack of focus, intellectual posing and last but not least pulling the viewer's leg. The director does not lack cute ideas, but seems to be unable to separate cute/good from cute/bad. Some stories (#6) are plain bad and others (#3) are absurdly inflated. Boredom creeps everywhere. Perhaps the best stories (#1, first half of #4, #5) are worth watching and, after radical cutting could make a witty two hour parody in early Woody Allen style. As it is, the movie is a miss.
Story 1 (Part 1, minutes 4 to 83: 79 minutes). By the director's claim this is an homage to an American B-movie which, he says, "Americans used to do with their eyes closed but they cannot do any more." The subject (malignant mummy) certainly fits the description. There are a few amusing scenes that will induce déjà vu in Argentinians. There is actually an end of sorts, mercifully a joke.
Story 2 (Part 1, minutes 83 to 222: 139 minutes). Defined as a musical. In fact, it evokes the feeling of the various versions of A Star is Born. A couple undergoing a bitter breakup need to reunite to write and record a new album; their separate records were not hits. Midway through, a mutual friend of the couple is found to have strange associations and the movie switches to the mad scientist(s) genre.
Story 3 (Part 2, minutes 0 to 205 and Part 3, minutes 0 to 126: 331 minutes). A riff on spy movies. Three (actually four) attractive women spies with a male handler, the women sleekly dressed in black, waving guns around and dispensing karate kicks obviously evoke Charlie's Angels and in fact much of the movie (like the first scene) is of comic strip or old TV series level. Action in many countries with an omniscient narrator pontificating endlessly. There is some material on what makes a person become a spy, but it is drowned in a five hour torrent. The ending which is not an ending seeks to evoke a Leone - Morricone western.
Story 4 (Part 3, minutes 130 to 216 and Part 4, minutes 2 to 105: 189 minutes). We see Llinás and his crew as they film the segment we are watching. The director becomes obsessed with filming lapacho trees. Evidence of a Lovecraftian tree uprising mounts and director and crew have a confrontation with a tree that drives them all mad. A psychologist/investigator is sent to find out what happened. This story is perhaps the funniest, with much self-parody. The screen director is obsessive about silly details, unable to communicate clearly, disdainful of scripts and organization in general and has a love/abuse relationship with his four actresses. Unfortunately, the story eventually explodes into incoherence involving old books, Arthur Machen, demonic cults and Casanova.
After the end of Story 4 we come back to the scenario at the beginning; a picnic table in a grove of trees near a steel pipe structure. The director informs: we are about to see Story 5, a silent parody of (or homage to) Renoir's Partie de Campagne and Story 6 called The Captive.
Story 5 (Part 4, minutes 110 to 157: 47 minutes). The parody/homage consists of black & white soundless scenes approaching or duplicating Renoir's, adapted to the Argentine countryside and to contemporary dress. Near the end we see a stirring exhibition of aerobatics and we hear snatches of Renoir's dialogue and music from the original.
Story 6 (Part 4, minutes 157 to 183: 26 minutes). Old books again; this time Remembrances of a Captive Englishwoman in the Plains of South America (1900, in Spanish) by Sarah S. Evans. It narrates the escape of Evans and another three women from captivity in Indian territory. This part alternates titles (photographed from the book) with blurry, saturated, almost static scenes.
End titles (Part 4, minutes 181 to 220: 39 minutes). Titles are projected over an upside down shot of the crew cleaning up. Image turns right side up at minute 207.
Obviously, there have to be reasons to watch a 13+ hour movie. I don't see any. The words that a viewing evokes are: hubris, pretentiousness, digression, lack of focus, intellectual posing and last but not least pulling the viewer's leg. The director does not lack cute ideas, but seems to be unable to separate cute/good from cute/bad. Some stories (#6) are plain bad and others (#3) are absurdly inflated. Boredom creeps everywhere. Perhaps the best stories (#1, first half of #4, #5) are worth watching and, after radical cutting could make a witty two hour parody in early Woody Allen style. As it is, the movie is a miss.