La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Message
Author
User avatar
senseabove
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#76 Post by senseabove » Wed May 13, 2020 4:53 pm

I decided it was a Long Movie night last night, so settled in for Llinas' Extraordinary Stories after work, and I'm pleased to say that I think it's just as brilliant as La Flor. Borges and Greenaway and Ruiz and Cortazar get tossed out as reference points a lot, but (excepting that the latter two I've yet to explore much of) the name that kept coming to mind for me was another Argentinian writer, Cesar Aira, known for writing his wildly unpredictable novellas one unplanned page per day, letting the story progress entirely according to his whim, and never back-tracking to make what he's already written make sense with what he has written later: there is only forward, creatively. Obviously, a film can't quite be so slapdash about things, but there's a similar sense of narrative momentum-as-purpose to the two Llinas films. And the relevance of Greenaway as a reference is not so much the formal playfulness or the structural starch as it is that it feels like both their primary concerns are to extend an artistic heritage that includes film, but extends much further back: narrative for Llinas and pictorial for Greenaway—early film serials, but also, say, Laurence Sterne.

La Flor is, of course, much more and more explicitly interested in the film portion of that narrative history, and I don't mean to say ES neglects its imagery, even if it is roughly 70% narration. Its interest in the distinctly filmic section of narrative history may, ironically, be mostly prominent in the disbelief-challenging "use what we can get away with" low-budget aesthetics of a period interlude, which returns as the B-movie horror aesthetics of Part 1 in La Flor. The technique for playing with visual narrative that I found delightful is its casual, playful frankness of contrasting the specificity of images against the generality of words. For example, there's a bit of narration about one main character boating down a river that won't be named before the narrator names the river, because obviously, we are watching someone boat down a specific, real river, but the specificity is actually irrelevant to the story; or conversely, a part where the narrator says a character is "from some country in Africa" while we see a passport from Zambia. There's a similar, corollary interest in the slippage between levels of narrative and levels of reality as between word and image—at one point, after summarizing one character's hypothetical extrapolation from disparate facts he's gathered, the narrator says "But [Characters A and B] knowing nothing about [C], except in X's imagination."

Despite that theme surfacing in a paranoid extrapolation in that particular instance, Rivette is still not really a reference point I feel much beyond the importance of duration to their projects. Rivette's concern is the need to create narrative out of disparate information, and to participate in that narrative whether by joining, rejecting, controlling it, etc., and he effects that in viewers at the same time as characters by exploiting curiosity, the faultiness of short-term memory, and our own capacity for extrapolation. Llinas's interest, though, is in the narrative compulsion for its own sake—not our need to make sense of this mess with a story, but our desire to fill silence with a story, to interrupt someone else's with one it reminds us of, to springboard from the tiniest detail to a story that, by all appearances, is completely unrelated. The two sisters interlude, the disappearing woman interlude, whose only relevance to the story is one characters' unfounded suspicion... they're utterly beguiling detours, anchored in the sheer pleasure of exploring how and why we suspend disbelief. A tantalizing mystery may be what drives his characters, but the substance of this is not the hunt for an ever more encompassing narrative. The substance is in the delight of surprise, our eagerness to listen, the thread rather than what it ties together. (As a side note, the capacity for paranoia is a minor key that Llinas' uses to pique our interest mostly, and it's certainly a hook for the audience, but as in contrast with Rivette, it's not his focus—I'd be curious to rewatch La Flor with an eye on it as a theme... and I'll be curious if he explores it more directly in subsequent work.)

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#77 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 13, 2020 6:17 pm

It's a great film and playfully constructs itself in a more labyrinthine way akin to Borges than La flor, which does this throughout the spy episode, but otherwise only sneakily punctures this Borges/Cortazar layered depth of narrative comprehension in a new dimension. The fourth chapter functions as a secret key to reveal the deceptively separate episodic structure as a whole composite.

Historias extraordinarias seemed to be more rooted in the 'possibilities in perspective' as opportunities for this information, to "fill silence with a story" in the details, as you say. Whether withholding the name of a river, or objectively showing a cast of characters interacting while musing about their own subjective limitations and experiences, or taking detours to focus on new details- the playing extends from characters' invaluable stances to the omniscient one, but also has fun with each's restrictions. Llinas continued to engage in that idea of perspective as the most significant tool for not only generating, but enthusing over the information that gives meaning to, and alters, narrative and the ideas of experience.

Paranoia is a symptom of this process of coping with finite framing, and I think he inserts it into his work to entertain us and evoke the pressure that comes with the territory of battling perspectives and anxiety in facing enigmatic forces (La flor's first chapter features the latter kind of paranoia, while the human-to-human battle exists in the second chapter's sideplot, though we become the involved parties in both and feel the bulk of anxiety in the enigmas in the second chapter- I mean, what the fuck is up with that drugged up boat dream/prophesizing?) but I don't think paranoia on its own is a primary interest, any more than history/one's past is - another key ingediant. Instead it's another recognized and utilized possibility, a "detail" of our/characters' many manifestations of perspective, that Llinas incorporates into the construction of these narratives, using all that can be used in the vast potential of storytelling.

This (paranoia, history, perspective) does fall under an umbrella of 'secrets' which are inherent consequences of perspective. The characters have secret agendas, ideas, thoughts, pasts, and fear these secrets of others. We are involved too - magnetically drawn into the secrets revealed to us by Llinas the puppeteer, and his characters, as well as stressfully coping with them. The 'in media res' cutting of the chapters in La flor force secrets to remain, but Llinas knows that they always will and is generous enough to offer us all the details he does, in each film. There are always more outlets to draw interesting information from, something Llinas and these South American authors knew very well, which is why their works are so investing for audiences, who are - by nature - participants, with our own constraints in access from defined vantage points.

I agree with you that any Rivette comparisons are misjudged, as he uses paranoia to establish anti-paranoia and ignite that existential path from crisis to healing that comes with the sobering truths of life's lack of tangible meaning, and promotes the making of our own. Llinas conversely uses paranoia to elicit a flood of small meanings and enjoys passionately exploring each curiously, validating and entertaining that psychological experience as-is, without needing to capitalize on each in casting them into a larger scope (though he does this in his own unique way by collecting and twisting narratives around them). Both use elasticity of narrative space to meet their goals though.

I cannot recommend Raul Ruiz highly enough, especially if you were as enlightened by the fourth chapter of La flor as most. I've read most Borges, but Cortazar is a writer I've been an arm's reach away from for years. My sister, who works in bilingual publishing (in the Bay area too, actually) wrote her thesis on his novel Hopscotch, which is sitting on my shelf right now dying to be read. His short story was the loose basis for Antonioni's Blow-Up though, which is one of the best inclusions in any of Criterion's booklets, in my opinion. A great read and even more interesting when compared to the film thematically. Anyways, I enjoyed reading your thoughts as always, and definitely don't sleep on Ruiz.

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

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#78 Post by senseabove » Wed May 13, 2020 8:05 pm

Ruiz is definitely on my list in general, and Mysteries of Lisbon is on the long-movies-during-shelter-in-place docket. I've only seen Time Regained and Tres Tristes Tigres.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#79 Post by knives » Wed May 13, 2020 8:48 pm

Mysteries of Lisbon moves along very quickly. It's also the film I've seen to really have that 19th century literary quality.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#80 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu May 14, 2020 3:11 pm

Mysteries of Lisbon is great and involves effortlessly creative storytelling and filmmaking in general, though Love Torn in a Dream is probably Ruiz at his most innovative regarding narrative. I can't properly describe what he chooses to do with layering seven or eight different ideas, but it's so inventive and insane that it needs to be seen to be believed. There are many examples of the diverse ways that Ruiz is imagination-run-riot, but that one is my favorite exhibition of his abilities to wholly transform the possibilities of narrative, basically making an experimental film out of it - which probably doesn't make any sense, until you see it.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#81 Post by zedz » Fri May 15, 2020 12:43 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu May 14, 2020 3:11 pm
Mysteries of Lisbon is great and involves effortlessly creative storytelling and filmmaking in general, though Love Torn in a Dream is probably Ruiz at his most innovative regarding narrative. I can't properly describe what he chooses to do with layering seven or eight different ideas, but it's so inventive and insane that it needs to be seen to be believed. There are many examples of the diverse ways that Ruiz is imagination-run-riot, but that one is my favorite exhibition of his abilities to wholly transform the possibilities of narrative, basically making an experimental film out of it - which probably doesn't make any sense, until you see it.
Love Torn in Dream explains exactly what it's going to do at the outset, and it's so preposterous that you just have to laugh. Then Ruiz goes ahead and does it, with, moreover, a kind of serious emotional and experiential coherence for the characters that would have seemed to be impossible under the circumstances. It's not my favourite Ruiz, but it could well be his most audacious - which is a hell of an achievement given what other mischief he got up to.

Getting back to the subject of this thread, Love Torn in Dream is the kind of filmic undertaking Mariano Llinas would dismiss as too hard.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#82 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri May 15, 2020 1:13 am

zedz wrote:
Fri May 15, 2020 12:43 am
It's not my favourite Ruiz, but it could well be his most audacious - which is a hell of an achievement given what other mischief he got up to.
My thoughts exactly, it’s just the one I want to show everyone because -even though this is how I feel about a lot of Ruiz- it’s a film I watched with jaw dropped wondering how someone can actually do that with the medium. It’s up there for me, but a few others beat it
zedz wrote:
Fri May 15, 2020 12:43 am
Getting back to the subject of this thread, Love Torn in Dream is the kind of filmic undertaking Mariano Llinas would dismiss as too hard.
Sure, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t an influence in some way on his first film’s overlapping narratives, even if he tempered it to his own rhythm. Ruiz’s take on Treasure Island feels more in Llinas’ wheelhouse for deconstructive playing with narrative. It’s one of my favorites, and if I remember correctly you also rank it high (which seems like a very unpopular, rare opinion).

(Btw, Treasure Island is available on YT for free, and it’s one of his few films in English, so thankfully accessible for most)

User avatar
gcgiles1dollarbin
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2010 3:38 am

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#83 Post by gcgiles1dollarbin » Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:35 pm

La Flor will be streaming on Mubi in mid-July, for those who a) haven't seen it, b) want to see it, c) will not subscribe to Mubi but still haven't used their free trial, d) don't have access to back channels, e) don't blind-buy discs, and f) won't pay for the streaming rental at Grasshopper for $15 to rent/$30 to buy. I may be the only one here who is all of those cheap-ass things, but I hope this is useful information for someone else. Apologies if this is redundant; couldn't find it upthread. As mentioned elsewhere, Extraordinary Stories is currently streaming on Mubi.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#84 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:50 pm

Hey, whatever will get people to see it!

User avatar
criterionsnob
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:23 am
Location: Canada

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#85 Post by criterionsnob » Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:32 pm

Mariano Llinas' Extraordinary Stories (Parts 1-3), now available to purchase or rent on Projectr, along with La flor.


User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#87 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:07 pm

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:50 pm
Adrian Martin on La Flor
Great read, thanks for sharing! (And please, Adrian Martin, do a commentary for a future release of this film to save 2020)


User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#89 Post by knives » Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:37 pm

Guess I have something to do till this work is back on.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#90 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:43 pm

This was announced last week in the Criterion Channel thread (but while we're here, see also The Brother From Another Planet, which is Sayles' best film and will make my Sci-Fi list)

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#91 Post by knives » Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:56 pm

I personally prefer Baby, It’s You.

User avatar
Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#92 Post by Pavel » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:27 pm

I'm most excited for the Alan Berliner films since I love Nobody's Business but have had a hard time finding The Sweetest Sound and Intimate Stranger. Plus My Sex Life and My Golden Days, both of which I've been meaning to watch for quite some time.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#93 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:32 pm

Pavel wrote:
Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:27 pm
I'm most excited for the Alan Berliner films since I love Nobody's Business but have had a hard time finding The Sweetest Sound and Intimate Stranger. Plus My Sex Life and My Golden Days, both of which I've been meaning to watch for quite some time.
My Sex Life is my second favorite 90s film, and La flor is my second favorite film period, as my current list stands, so you're in good company either way

User avatar
Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#94 Post by Pavel » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:35 pm

Not the most appropriate place to ask, but since it was brought up: what's your favorite 90s film? (I'm pretty sure I know what your favorite of all time is.)

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#95 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 01, 2020 12:57 am

Not related to La flor, but since my darling avatar Elisa Carricajo doesn't have a thread (yet), her first star vehicle, Cetáceos, finally got English subs on backchannels. I won't post my writeup since it's part of a larger project (hopefully within a few years), but for those with access, I really liked it.

The film essentially takes the tired formula of ‘female existential crises when transitioning to domestic life’ and boldly refuses to play by the rules, subverting most expectations and leaving us with a banal impenetrable anti-journey, which is probably the most honest possible depiction of this stage even if it violates cinematic codes of conduct in its alienation. A perfect part for Carricajo’s unique hybrid of enigmatic qualities and naturalistic authenticity. The rest of the troupe barring Pilar Gamboa pop up too, so I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention it!

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#96 Post by knives » Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:24 pm

Only done with the first part, decided to take an intermission, but I’m loving the continued use of narrative to talk about narrative carried over from Extraordinary Stories. I don’t think I saw this mentioned in the thread, but sorry if there is any overlap.
SpoilerShow
What I mean is the interconnectedness of the stories forcing them to converge into a cosmic story known as The Flower. The structure as outlined in the prologue really only calls for three stories, the beginning and the end with the whole functioning as a middle, so there automatically comes a question on the need for the three other beginnings. At the moment I assume there’s a direct connection between the mummy and final story given the emphasis so far thematically closing it if not narratively and I assume the other three stories play that game as well.

What the second story reveals though is the dialogue between stories that is essential to the coherence of the canvas. The first story is all about a mysterious disease which infects while the second concerns the inability to be infected. That’s a fairly heavy handed example but even it helps make clear the intentions of both pieces and gives an algorithm to test what themes you can input onto the film. It’s basically an exercise in auteur theory. That’s my theory a quarter of the way through the film at least.
I should probably end my intermission now if I want to finish this this week.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#97 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:43 pm

knives wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:24 pm
Only done with the first part, decided to take an intermission, but I’m loving the continued use of narrative to talk about narrative carried over from Extraordinary Stories. I don’t think I saw this mentioned in the thread, but sorry if there is any overlap.
SpoilerShow
What I mean is the interconnectedness of the stories forcing them to converge into a cosmic story known as The Flower. The structure as outlined in the prologue really only calls for three stories, the beginning and the end with the whole functioning as a middle, so there automatically comes a question on the need for the three other beginnings. At the moment I assume there’s a direct connection between the mummy and final story given the emphasis so far thematically closing it if not narratively and I assume the other three stories play that game as well.
I don't know what would lead you to believe that the prologue only calls for three stories, or focuses on closing loops, but I think you'll find that if you watch interviews with the director, and more of the film, that it's more about a cumulative build of exhausting themselves by trying to make "all the films" until they run out of gas and become iconic, like Bergman's career reflected in climbing the volcano in Stromboli
knives wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:24 pm
SpoilerShow
What the second story reveals though is the dialogue between stories that is essential to the coherence of the canvas. The first story is all about a mysterious disease which infects while the second concerns the inability to be infected. That’s a fairly heavy handed example but even it helps make clear the intentions of both pieces and gives an algorithm to test what themes you can input onto the film. It’s basically an exercise in auteur theory. That’s my theory a quarter of the way through the film at least.
This is a great point and spot on, and speaks to the kinds of contributions to this "cosmic story" you referred to before, that some of us have talked about in relation to the comprehensive whole. There are plenty more of those 'gags' to discover, and I'd definitely suggest watching it as closely together as possible and probably formulating thoughts at the end, since it's a long film and not a series offering bait for future predictions, despite the episodic format

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#98 Post by knives » Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:57 pm

I was referring to the narrative arc use of in media res outlined in the prologue. Obviously other things are on the film’s mind and other things could be discussed in interviews. My statement was only in reference to the use of in media res with the outlined image he helpfully draws for us.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#99 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:34 pm

Yeah I just think that's a specific context you're imposing on that image, not a structure outlined by him. The image is itself a joke because he's trying to physically pin down a way to describe what he's doing in a tangible form and it's just arrows swimming around forming what could be a flower. This resembles a deviation towards trying to make sense of things in concrete terms (which is why the joke's on us when we find it "helpful", which we of course do!) but also slashes the auteurist framework that the filmmaker knows what he's doing in calculated progress as a comprehensive vision from the get-go. This project formed itself and its accrued meaning over the course of its filming, as becomes obvious when you get to the fourth segment, and I'm pretty sure Llinas just drew the image from subconscious inspiration though its significance is to be taken as seriously as the playful nature of the rest of the film.

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: La flor (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

#100 Post by zedz » Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:50 pm

Knives, I think you're in for some delightful surprises. How the rest of the film relates to the expectations created by Llinas' initial explanation is one of the film's best meta-gags.

(And wait till you see the spider!)

Oh, and the original placement of the intermissions in the theatrical presentation is another part of the joke, so if you can replicate them in your home-viewing experience, so much the better.

From personal experience, the very long episode three works much better as an integral, whole day experience, not broken up over several days, because Llinas is doing weird / interesting things with suspense, deferral, and multiple parallel timelines in it.

Post Reply