MAN OF FLOWERS

1983 / 91 min. / 35mm / Drama

 

Director:  Paul Cox

Script:  Paul Cox, Bob Ellis

Cinematographer:  Yuri Sokol

Sound Recordist:  Lloyd Carrick

Art Director:  Asher Bilu

Editor:  Tim Lewis

Producers:  Jane Ballantyne, Paul Cox

Associate Producer:  Tony Llewellyn-Jones

Cast: Norman Kaye, Alyson Best, Chris Haywood, Sarah Walker

MAN OF FLOWERS Awards

1983:  AFI Award - Best Leading Actor - Norman Kaye;  Chicago Film Festival-Silver Hugo Award, Figueira Da Fol Portugal - Best Film & Best Cinematography;  Cannes-Un Certain Regard;  Warsaw - Best Foreign Film

1984:  Valladolid Int. Film Festival - Golden Spike

MAN OF FLOWERS is both erotic and richly amusing, with a tragic after-glow.  The essence of the story is the confrontation between modern and traditional art;  between modern and traditional love; or even between modern and traditional life.  The old world meets the new and only the old, traditional world has any substance.

 

Charles Bremer, a reclusive collector of paintings, sculpture and other more delicate works such as rare flowers and naughty postcards.  Lisa, an artists model, regularly comes to Charles’ sumptuous house and he pays her handsomely to do a striptease to the ‘Love Duet’ from 'Donnizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor’.  He then leaves quickly and plays the organ alone in the church across the road from his house.

 

Charles, we learn, has not always been rich and is currently in therapy.  Charles writes a letter daily to his dead mother describing in euphemistic terms his growing obsession with his “little flower”, Lisa.  During the course of the film, we slowly learn the source of Charles’ little sexual ritual.

Timeout London - Derek Adams - 2006

“Cox achieves a difficult balance between a quirkily individual sense of humour, and a more poignant, serious sense of purpose about the privacy of our fantasy lives and our essential loneliness, which is right on target.”

 

Ozus World Movie Review - Denis Schwartz - 2004

“It's a well-conceived and intelligently provocative lyrical film about how fantasies can enrich our lives and how damning loneliness can be.”