Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

disinterested_spectator When he was a little boy, Charles saw his mother naked, and he has been obsessed with his mother and naked women ever since. He pays a psychiatrist to listen to him talk about his mother, and he pays a woman named Lisa to take off her clothes the way his mother did, giving Paul Cox, the director, an excuse to film some full frontal nudity. In between, Charles writes letters to his dead mother, addressed to himself, and goes around looking for statues of naked women to feel up.But I guess that was not enough for Cox, so he gave Lisa a girlfriend, who is a lesbian, and they have sex together, and we get to watch. But Charles wants to watch too, so he pays them for the privilege. And that was not enough for Cox, so when Charles goes to look at David's art, we get to see David with a naked woman. And then when Charles kills David so he can have Lisa for himself (just to watch, not to touch), he has a sculptor disguise David's corpse as a statue. A naked statue, of course.Now, lest we get the idea that Charles is a pervert (or that Cox is a pervert for wanting to make a movie like this), we have Lisa's assurance that Charles is a kind, sensitive, sweet man. And then Cox wraps the whole seedy tale up in a lot of art: we have the organ that Charles plays for the church, we have operatic music unrelentingly going on in the background, we have sculpture and paintings, we have arrangements of flowers, and we have an art class, where a woman poses nude.In other words, Cox really put some lipstick on this pig.

PeterMitchell-506-564364 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.

kiwisago Over twenty years ago, a good friend at the time insisted I see this film. And until a few weeks ago, I thought I'd never done so. But when I got about four fifths of the way through it, I realized that I had seen it before. I had forgotten this. My most recent viewing also came from a friend's insistence that I see it (different friend).I can see why people THINK I should like it. It has art, beauty, flowers, sensitivity, an intelligent and gentle approach to sexuality, uniqueness, and flair. But I just don't.I find the central character painfully stagnant, rather than poetically so, with his preoccupation with both the collective past and his own past. He reminds me of people I have known who are equally sensitive and locked in their own worlds, and I find it more tedious than romantic. Rather, I found the obnoxious young painter to be full of life and vivid. So it's not for me. With its antiquated sense of beauty, I suspect it would appeal most easily to people who were born before 1965. It really is a lovely little jewel.

spj-4 This is a classy movie!!! I saw it by chance nearly 20 years ago & it remains one of my great memories of the cinema! Back then, I thought this loner was intriguing but nothing more. In this world's terms, he was a loser, a grief-stricken man sending letters to his deceased mother, friend of the postman, lover of fine art! In his eccentric kingdom that the palatial few are privileged to find! But his complex nature is balanced by the puritanical historical background he is enlivened by, privileged by, but too, imprisoned by! So he sits at his lonely piano in a deserted church of grandeur! Playing his heart out!!!A perfect Catholic solution by the reckoning of some … without hope of any resolution!!! It reminds me of a pair of REAL priests! One who liked to use his Sunday sermons for derision & cynical responses! Another who used pillars of the church to distribute confessions of trusting practitioners! When I was a little boy, hearing for the first time of the "Good Samaritan", I couldn't believed that a priest would walk by on the opposite side of the road, to the injured & beaten collapsed man who was cared for by the rich young man & the innkeeper the hero paid for the keep of the downtrodden one! But there's chambers of music & gardens of intrigue wafting with or without audience here! The settings & the musical background are most impressive, from the fineries of the outside garden, to the gardens that are revealed to us layer by layer in the relationships of the protagonist to the beautiful female model who undresses for the man of mystery, on appointment, to the crass judgemental nature of her accomplice & lover in his satire of derision. Or even in the art classes where this trio mingles in a volatile atmosphere within seconds! The chemical reaction is furious!This is NOT a good movie! It is a CLASSIC!!! Personally, I rate this with "Cinema Paridiso", as one of the finest films ever made!!! Do NOT miss it!