“Flowers” is the official entry from Spain for this year’s Academy Awards, and while it didn’t make the final cut of semi-finalists, it did make a little history. This is the first time Spain has chosen to submit a film with Basque dialogue, the language spoken by a minority of the country’s citizens.
So it’s an interesting movie to listen to. And to look at: “Flowers” is very carefully shot, as befits a film that frequently focuses on artfully arranged bouquets of flowers.
The movie looks at the lives of some apparently un-extraordinary people. First we meet Ane (Nagore Aranburu), a woman whose air of disappointment is matched by her humdrum marriage.
Her life is brightened, and made mysterious, by the fact that flowers begin arriving at her apartment, once a week. There’s no note, and no way to identify the sender — a fact that annoys her husband.
Ane works at a construction company, where one of her co-workers is a crane operator, Benat (Josean Bengoetxea). We look into his life, where his dour wife Lourdes (Itziar Ituno) seems to be in a state of war with his perpetually disapproving mother (Itziar Aizpuru).
The movie shifts its focus when death strikes this group of characters. Ane’s flowers stop arriving, and she sets out to learn — secretly, because there’s no way to explain this to the husband — who the sender might have been.
It sounds somber, and it is. The co-directors, Jon Garano and Jose Mari Goenaga, establish a quiet mood from the very first moments, and sustain it all the way through.
They’re so controlled in their style that the film gets almost claustrophobic at times. But they break up the monotony by punctuating scenes with close-ups of the flower bouquets — those bursts of vibrant color seem to be reminding the characters of the vivid life they’re missing.
And that’s what finally makes the movie worth seeing (along with the talented cast of unusual, offbeat actors). We get a strong sense of how these people are avoiding dealing with their own problems by fantasizing about what might be, or what might have been.
The flowers bind that idea together in a visual way. They don’t give Oscars for floristry, but if they did, this movie would win in a walk.
“Flowers” (3 stars)
The lives of some distinctly un-extraordinary people are connected by an unknown person’s habit of sending bouquets of flowers. This quiet, somber film (Spain’s official Oscar submission) does a nice job of showing how people avoid their own problems by what might be and what might have been. In Basque, with English subtitles.
Rating: Not rated; probably PG-13 for subject matter
Showing: Grand Illusion theater
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