Reality TV should be this good
For filmgoers who are looking for a funny Bill Murray movie like Caddy Shack, you will be disappointed. But if you can watch this film just for the pure joy of watching the collision of the baggage of the past meeting the present and the fun that ensues, then you will really appreciate this wonderful film.
Jarmusch unravels the illusion of "Don Juan" as Don faces the fact that his past lovers are either uncomfortable with him or he's uncomfortable with them and none of them are forthcoming with any information as to whether he's left a trail of kids behind.
Until your middle aged and reflect on the past and realize the choices you've made are what molded your present situation, AND see that perhaps you could have made better choices, then this film won't make any sense to you. Jarmusch beautifully photographs (and scripts) the accident that is 21st century "middle age" for a man who's fought his way through a quagmire of womens lib, empowerment, equality, the...
A Film By...
If I had to name one actor who best embodied the qualities of a Robert Bresson film, Bill Murray would be it. Bresson, in case you're unfamiliar with the name, was one of the directors who helped to inspire the French New Wave of the 50's and 60's. His credits include such classics as Pickpocket, A Man Escaped and Au Hasard Balthazar. I mention this not because he's the director of Murray latest star vehicle (that would be indie icon Jim Jarmusch) or because I want to name-drop some of my all-time favorite films (okay, maybe a little of the latter), but because in recent years Murray's taken on a persona that could be described as positively Bressonian.
In fact, this goes all the way back to his first dramatic turn in The Razor's Edge. What he does, and what directors like Bresson and Carl Dreyer always advocated, is he wipes all expression from his face, thus leaving it to the audience to project their own emotions onto the character. I expect this will probably be...
Jeez.. the suburbs have changed!
I saw this beautiful sleeper of a movie back to back with "A History of Violence". "Broken Flowers' was a perfect antidote to a cynical re-hashed Western about a 'gunslinger' revisited by trouble.
The sad thing is that so many people thought that "Violence" had very deep things to say about America. I think that Jim Jarmusch knows more about America than David Cronenberg, and I'm grateful.
"Broken Flowers", as others have remarked, has the character of a waking dream. Bill Murray's shipwrecked Don Juan emerges in the beginning of the film from a cave-like bachelor's lair and walks into the sunshine of real life, looking (as always) rumpled and frowsy and not entirely awake. Through a sequence of gorgeous days, he pursues the chimaera of an unknown son that he may have sired twenty years earlier. He makes a tour of old acquaintances, and realizes some bittersweet lessons about life, such as, "be careful what you wish for... that son who's looking for you...
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