La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

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senseabove
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#26 Post by senseabove » Sat Oct 12, 2019 2:19 pm

I'm sad that the only theater playing this in the Bay Area is playing it in their smallest theater, whose seats are incredibly uncomfortable and whose screen is practically the same size as the one in my living room, but neck-crankingly high, plus they're breaking it over four days over two weekends—the weekends surrounding Halloween, no less—and charging four separate admissions (which would also mean, for me, four round trips of bay-crossing transportation, making this an $86 movie ticket in total!)... So I likely won't get to see this until the BD comes out and I get a nasty cold that has me couch-bound for two days.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#27 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Oct 12, 2019 2:46 pm

It’ll be the best cold of your life.


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domino harvey
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#29 Post by domino harvey » Wed Dec 11, 2019 1:18 am

That label knows how to recoup costs, look at there being French subs too

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swo17
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#30 Post by swo17 » Wed Dec 11, 2019 1:57 am

For the record I will still opt for the Grasshopper release if they act fast

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senseabove
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#31 Post by senseabove » Wed Dec 11, 2019 1:59 am

It did already have a BD release in France, though I don’t know how large a run an FNAC exclusive is. And it has no English subs, unlike the German release, according to that listing...

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#32 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Dec 11, 2019 2:24 am

Yeah the French BD has no English subs, which why this is so crucial. I’m with swo, plus I have no idea about the quality of this label, but I’m likely going to purchase it pretty soon anyways and wind up double dipping if necessary.

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jsteffe
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#33 Post by jsteffe » Wed Dec 11, 2019 10:26 am

Yes - the Absolut Medien site states that it will be "codefree."

Glowingwabbit
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#34 Post by Glowingwabbit » Wed Dec 11, 2019 10:40 am

Oh fantastic! That price isnt bad either. This will hold me over until Grasshopper releases their copy (if they do)

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#35 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Dec 11, 2019 12:16 pm

jsteffe wrote:
Wed Dec 11, 2019 10:26 am
Yes - the Absolut Medien site states that it will be "codefree."
Yeah exactly, that's why I added it in, since blu-ray.com lists it as B but I'll trust their direct site. There aren't any extras listed sadly, and I'm not sure how their company's transfers have been for blu-ray, but spread over 3 discs with the first two carrying over 5 hours of film makes me wonder about encode issues (full disclosure: I'm a novice in this area).

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zedz
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#36 Post by zedz » Wed Dec 11, 2019 9:17 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Dec 11, 2019 12:16 pm
jsteffe wrote:
Wed Dec 11, 2019 10:26 am
Yes - the Absolut Medien site states that it will be "codefree."
Yeah exactly, that's why I added it in, since blu-ray.com lists it as B but I'll trust their direct site. There aren't any extras listed sadly, and I'm not sure how their company's transfers have been for blu-ray, but spread over 3 discs with the first two carrying over 5 hours of film makes me wonder about encode issues (full disclosure: I'm a novice in this area).
Maybe a little tight, but there are lots of variables that could make it okay. Note that Grasshopper assumed they'd need four BluRays, which suggests that Absolut Medien might have crammed this a little.

Glowingwabbit
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#37 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sat Dec 14, 2019 10:53 am

You can currently stream La Flor either as a rental or purchase (each part is sold/rented separately, but it's not bad given the length of each part). It ends 12/31.

https://grasshopperfilm.com/film/la-flor/

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Aunt Peg
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#38 Post by Aunt Peg » Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:08 am

Given La Flor has dialogue spoken in Spanish, French, English, Russian, German & Swedish what are the chances of the German dialogue being subtitled in English and how much German dialogue is there in the film?

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The Curious Sofa
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#39 Post by The Curious Sofa » Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:00 am

Aunt Peg wrote:
Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:08 am
Given La Flor has dialogue spoken in Spanish, French, English, Russian, German & Swedish what are the chances of the German dialogue being subtitled in English and how much German dialogue is there in the film?
"absolut Medien" lists English subs (Untertitel) : https://absolutmedien.de/film/8512/LA+F ... Blu-ray%29

:edit: it’s already been mentioned above.

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Aunt Peg
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#40 Post by Aunt Peg » Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:10 am

The Curious Sofa wrote:
Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:00 am
Aunt Peg wrote:
Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:08 am
Given La Flor has dialogue spoken in Spanish, French, English, Russian, German & Swedish what are the chances of the German dialogue being subtitled in English and how much German dialogue is there in the film?
"absolut Medien" lists English subs (Untertitel) : https://absolutmedien.de/film/8512/LA+F ... Blu-ray%29

:edit: it’s already been mentioned above.
Makes sense that the German dialogue should have English subtitles really.

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jsteffe
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#41 Post by jsteffe » Tue Dec 17, 2019 6:07 pm

Just FYI... My understanding is that the native frame rate for the film is 25fps, which is fairly unusual these days. Perhaps Llinás had a home video/TV release primarily in mind?

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#42 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 17, 2019 6:42 pm

Llinás has stated in interviews that he only wants his film seen in a theatre, and has gone so far as to state that those who watch it on a small screen are not really experiencing his film (I forget the exact words but he’s pretty heavy in his dismissal of non-theatrical experiences). If it were up to him I don’t think it would get any release.

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senseabove
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#43 Post by senseabove » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:28 pm

I finished this night before last and thought it was, overall, pretty wonderful. It's at times abrasively frustrating, often in the first third when I guess Llinás is wrestling you into your Stockholm Syndrome, like any good endurance movie must, and my first instinct is that it's not quite the juggernaut I was expecting. Due to its segmentation, it doesn't have the reality-commandeering feel of its inevitable reference film, Out 1, and its heady theoretical expansiveness is (thankfully) undercut by a wonderful levity, consciously playing with convention in a way that is often hilarious, often affecting, and a whole lot of inside baseball. But once you're firmly be-Stockholmed, partway through episode three, it starts to build a charmingly shaggy tension and release by structural, anti-narrative means, and the amalgamation of section four, sliding into and out of stories and perspectives that belong to several, very different movies, merging them, exchanging them, abandoning them, is a just delicious picaresque, even if I found the Godardian elements bordering on a little too sigh-inducingly Godardian for my taste (which I say—of course—before going to see a A Woman Is a Woman tonight...) It's a highlight of the year (both last and this, I guess), and makes the relative directness of the last two episodes all the more ravishing for their simplified fragmentation. And the more I reflect on it, the more charmed I am by its extravagances and its little moments, the more I think it might be that juggernaut, and the more I hope I get the chance to see it all in a theater over two days to decide... (Absolutely baffling that the only local showing it had for me was four days over two weekends, with five days between the last two parts of Ep. 3!)

One critical thing I noticed this morning digging up other peoples' thoughts: I can't find a single female professional critic who's written about the movie?

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senseabove
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#44 Post by senseabove » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:43 pm

And of course, right after I post that, I discover Film Comment has a four-critic roundup with two female critics, though only Dennis Lim's write-up is online... Still seems a surprisingly slim crowd, given the number of other pieces I've come across in nearly every active film-related publication.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#45 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 23, 2020 4:54 pm

Melissa Anderson from ArtForum seems to be one of its biggest champions, I believe the only person who has cited it as the best film of last year (besides zedz and me).

The "Godardian" elements are definitely more in line with Godard's essay/narrative blended late-period films than something like A Woman is a Woman. I will say that after I saw it for the first time, I enjoyed it, but after it swam around in my head for a month and I watched it again, I appreciated those earlier parts a whole lot more as I had more experience with the actresses to pay attention to their own singularities and developments, as well as comprehending more of the narrative playing and jokes involved. But this didn't become one of my all-time favorite films overnight, nor my favorite of the year right away either.

Now feels like as good a time as any to re-introduce my question that died upon asking last year...
therewillbeblus wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:59 pm
Question regarding the first story for those who’ve seen the film:
SpoilerShow
Marcela (Elisa Carricajo), the first character we see, breaks from a sexual encounter in the first scene and says to herself, “Please, not again..” She continues to present as very distressed throughout the story except for a brief moment near the end when she finds the mummy’s eyes that are the catalyst for the supernatural elements of the plot, and then seems to be calm, smiling, and about to explain something to the man who she had the initial romantic encounter with before they’re interrupted.

I understand that some of this information is being kept from us on purpose, but does anyone have an idea for why she becomes so afraid in that first scene, and subsequently the rest of the film prior to any mummy entering the picture?
I think it's probably intended to be unexplained since part of the idea is ending the films in medias res, but for being my least favorite narrative in the film it's probably the one I'm most invested in figuring out

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senseabove
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#46 Post by senseabove » Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:54 pm

I don't see that Anderson has written about it anywhere, though, beyond ranking it highly? Maybe it's forthcoming in 4Columns...

Regarding your question,
SpoilerShow
yes, I'd assumed that was just a fast hook to get us invested in waiting for some later revelation. Generically, I would assume an unseen late-film twist that she was already acquainted with the mummy and "felt" its pending arrival. Isn't she the one who finds the eyes after the first one steals and and is cursed by them, and yet we get no new information as a result of her finding them again, she shows no subsequent symptoms, and she shows them to no one and seems to have no curiosity about them, just pockets them?

Or I suppose if you wanted to go for the meta interpretation, it could be an in-joke with repeat viewers about starting the whole 14 hour endeavor again or—less likely, and I don't really see any indication for it, but I had the thought—the actress "waking up" in another new story...

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therewillbeblus
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#47 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jan 23, 2020 6:00 pm

She definitely has written about it since Grasshopper films uses a pullquote on their page of the film, but I don't know to what extent. And even if it wasn't intended, I actually like your "less likely" reading a lot!

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senseabove
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#48 Post by senseabove » Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:06 pm

The pullquote on their site is just her blurb from her Best Of list, unfortunately, and doesn't seem to indicate any longer print criticism: https://www.artforum.com/print/201910/m ... rson-81343

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bad future
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#49 Post by bad future » Thu Jan 23, 2020 11:30 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 4:54 pm
Melissa Anderson from ArtForum seems to be one of its biggest champions, I believe the only person who has cited it as the best film of last year (besides zedz and me).
senseabove wrote:
Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:54 pm
I don't see that Anderson has written about it anywhere, though, beyond ranking it highly? Maybe it's forthcoming in 4Columns...
I’ve seen two others list it as their favorite of 2019 (metacritic’s annual roundup of top 10’s is always pretty extensive and, combined with a ctrl-F, pretty useful!) and both have written about it: Ryan Swen from Film Stage (at his personal site) and Joshua Brunsting at Criterioncast.

Not sure if it’s the kind of analysis you’re looking for (I’m only like halfway through the former one) but wanted to share!

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What A Disgrace
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Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#50 Post by What A Disgrace » Fri Feb 14, 2020 9:52 pm

I ordered this from Amazon DE, and its prepating to ship. When Arrow, Eureka, Second Run, Second Sight, or whoever release the film in the UK, you can all thank me. I'll try to make a few uneducated comments on the transfer, but I wasn't planning the purchase and I won;t have time to watch the whole film until July. And if not, I guess you can all just be jealous.

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