Last night was feeling too flat to do anything but a little restless at the same time, so I took off for Carlton with the intention of catching a late show at the Nova on my own. Was tossing up between Mirrormask, Serenity and Broken Flowers (and briefly considered The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when I unexpectedly arrived early enough for that 'un), but once I got to the cinema, I realised that in the circumstances (drifting, late at night, alone) the new Jarmusch was the only possible choice.
The set-up of the film's quite simple - Don Johnston (Bill Murray), an aging bachelor with a string of relationships behind him, has just been left by his latest, and on the same day receives a letter from an anonymous ex informing him he has a 19 year old son who may have set out on a road trip in search of him. Spurred by his detective fiction-fascinated neighbour Winston, he goes on a road trip of his own, riding buses, renting cars and flying on airplanes across the US in order to drop in on old lovers, searching for clues as to which - if any - might be the mother of his son.
In some ways, the tenor for Don's interactions with these old flames is set by the scene with his most recent, Shelly (played by Julie Delpy), whose departure kicks off the journey. They talk - a little - and there are hints of communication and understanding there, both in what is said and what is not, but it's overhung by a heaviness - the heaviness of the past and, it seems, of Don's inability or unwillingness to open up or give something essential of himself. Moreover, Delpy must be one of the most beautiful women in film today, and that beauty can be seen in her character in Broken Flowers, but something about her here - her appearance, her character, her performance - gives an impression of her as a woman who has seen a bit of and, in some measure, been let down by life...she appears weary in a way which can't be completely attributed to her relationship with Don.
The same is true of the ex-lovers whom Don drops in on, one by one: Laura (Sharon Stone), a brightly smiling but somehow brittle suburban single mother, her husband having died in a fiery accident; Dora (Frances Conroy), a former hippie princess turned childless, dessicated, quietly suffocating housewife in an immaculate, prefab house; Carmen (Jessica Lange), who became a successful lawyer after her time with Don, before giving it up for a new career as an 'animal communicator'; and Penny (Tilda Swinton), fiery and bruised, living in trailer-parkville surrounded by motorbikes, trash and wildflowers (and there's also one other who has passed away, and whose grave Don visits last, on a rainy day). With the exception of Conroy, all of them are familiar faces to me, but they're familiar as younger, fresher faces, and in Broken Flowers all have the same faded air of having suffered their own private heartaches and regrets as the years have passed - which is given added piquancy by the clear images of their younger selves which are so easy to summon. (They're all fantastic - especially Stone.)
The centre of the film is, of course, Don, and this centre is occupied by Murray, as it was in Lost In Translation (and, to a lesser extent, The Life Aquatic), with a weary passivity which is saved from being mere nullity by the understated hints of feeling which he conveys - vulnerability, regret, nostalgia, doubt. It's a subtle and nuanced performance, and if one often feels that Murray is basically just playing Bill Murray, well, that's probably all to the good in this case. Don isn't the sort of character who talks a lot about his feelings, or ever seems to be taking an active part in the direction of his life, and yet, as the film progresses, one senses (or intuits) a great deal of what he's thinking, and what directions he's moving in as a person as the trip goes on...and he's definitely a character - a real person - and not simply a cipher or an abstract riddle to be solved or decoded.
In that respect, an important hint is provided by the significance of the colour pink. The letter which triggers the whole journey comes in a pink envelope, and is typewritten on pink paper (red ink for the handwritten address on the envelope), and the colour (along with the typewriter) comes to be a recurring theme in Don's journey. Not only does he always bring pink flowers, but every one of the women (including Shelly) is somehow identified with the colour, whether by clothing, possessions, or other means - giving rise to the suspicion that perhaps Don's perceptions are being quite literally coloured by his expectations and desires...that the vision we're getting in Broken Flowers is a subtly fantasised one, shaped by the personality and submerged wishes of Don himself (a theme also played out in Don's reactions to the young men with whom he crosses paths, each of whom just may be his son).
A couple of other comments: the bluesy, 60s-styled song playing at the beginning (done by an outfit called the Greenhornes, with Holly Golightly on vocals) was ace, and music is important throughout the film; the whole film has a very cool, arty feel, and its episodic style worked in its favour, I thought, particularly when coupled with the fade out/fade ins used as transitions between episodes; it's also very funny and often very warm (say, in Don's interactions with Winston's family); and the ending is, while a bit predictable, the right one. There are hints as to the truth of the letter and its author, and I have some theories about that myself, but in the end, that question isn't really the mystery with which Jarmusch or Broken Flowers is concerned. So all up, I thought that this was a good little piece - it didn't take my breath away, but it's lingered with me so far, and I want to see it again.
* * *
Incidentally, having gone out at that time also gave me the opportunity to indulge in one of my more idiosyncratic pleasures - wandering through the aisles of a supermarket at night (the film started at 11.40pm, and the Safeway in the complex closes at midnight). I know, very DeLillo of me - but I think that the appeal comes from the slightly weird-surreal-incongruous nature of the exercise, rather than out of any sense of self-construction through consumption, conspicuous mediation of everyday experience, or et cetera. Did think about buying something - considered a tin of Campbell's tomato soup (420g; $1.84), as a sort of salute to Warhol - though, and in the end settled for an apple to crunch on before the film started.
