Broken Things

[chani]

Happy stuff doesn't necessarily make you happy.

I've read fanfictions that were killing me, breaking my heart (nyc_herself  being the Queen of such writing!), yet they made me happy at the same time. BTW check out anaross ' new Spuffy WIP. The title is "Stay" and it's very angsty.

I love Tom McRae for his music and for expressing with style how miserable he is in his songs. And the most sad pieces by Chopin have always made me happy too. Same with Poe's darkest poetry. The other day I was reading Hyperion in bed and the tale about young Rachel made me sob. But I was happy.

You may know the famous verses by Alfred de Musset:

"Les plus desépérés sont les chant les plus beaux 

Et j'en sais d'immortels qui sont de purs sanglots."

The film I saw this week isn't about happiness, it is even quite dark beneath a light and funny exterior. And the title was a give-away: Broken Flowers. 

This Jim Jarmush's film won a well-deserved award at Cannes Festival, Le Grand Prix. It's about a journey and about clichés.

Don Johnston is a greying perpetual bachelor, played by Bill Murray. At the beginning of the film, he is dumped by current girl-friend, Sherry (Julie Delpy)while he's watching an old black and white movie about Don Juan! Jim Jarmush obviously enjoyed himself here giving his hero the first name that calls a Myth to mind and a last name that keeps misleading people...No, the character isn't the actor of Miami Vice, Don Johnson! Our hero keeps pointing out "Johnston with a t".

This joke reveals the tone of the movie: we're going to smile and laugh even but...there might be some serious stuff underneath, existential stuff, and some despair within the comedy.

Is DJ a Don Juan? His neighbour and friend, Winston, a black worker who's the father of 5 kids, thinks so, because DJ is always moving to the next girl. Yet Don isn't very attractive, he's always wearing jogging suits, watching tv and seems depressed all the time. Not much of a Don Juan material...

But on the day Sherry leaves him, something happens. He finds a mail, a pink letter in a pink envelope, from a supposed former girlfriend telling him he has a 19 years old son who may be looking for him. The letter isn't signed. Winston, who's a lover of crime novels and an avid Internet surfer, gets very excited by this mystery. Don is rather passive and doesn't care much, he's ready to forget the letter and to wallow in his loneliness but he accepts to make a list of his old flames and lets Sherlock-Winston plan a trip for him.

Instead of moving to the next girl, Don is thrown, a bit despite himself, to cross the country and confront the women of his past, looking for clues (typewriter, pink things), following Winston 's recommendations, directions and maps. Will he find out the author of the letter? Will he solve the mystery?

When Don comes back he tells Winston that he still doesn't know who wrote the letter, he just got beaten up, and the films seems to end up without giving any answer. I'm pretty sure that many viewers were left frustrated, wanting more. Except that there's no mystery to solve IMO. The letter might or might not be a joke from Sherry (she wore a pink ensemble at the beginning of the movie, and in the end she sends a pink letter to him) but it isn't really the point of that movie.

Don's journey accross America is meaningful and hopeless because every woman he encounters is a living cliché (and so was Winston and his family btw), therefore a bubble of vacuity, and above all the evidence of what is for ever lost: 

So there's Laura (Sharon Stone), a beautiful and sexy widow who's a closet/drawers organizer! Actually Don first meets her daughter, a sexually charged teenager, named of course....Lolita! Then there's Dora (Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under!), former hippie, thus a flower girl, who's changed a lot and is now an uptight estate agent and a submissive wife who seemingly never had children. The dinner scene is priceless btw! The third woman is Carmen (Jessica Lange) former lawyer who's become a...pet communicator (thanks to her late black Lab whose name was...Winston!) and is obvioulsy now in a lesbian relationship with her secretary. Could we say trendy? And finally there's Penny living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by bikers and trash, obviously broken. She's angry and doesn't want to see Don. That bikers mom is also a stereotype.

Every time Don notices something pink. Every woman could be the author of the letter. In a way it's always the same woman he encounters, behind the different clichés, Sherry, Laura, Lolita, Dora and Carmen are all blonde and slim. A don juan is known for chasing always the same woman btw. The movie isn't about them anyway, but about him, and those stereotyped women served his journey.

To every woman he offers flowers and every woman gives him something, but it's getting less and less as the film and his journey progress:

In Laura's home Don gets sex, warmth and Lolita's attention (she does come on to him). He's still a seducer and the encounter is pleasant! In Dora's home he gets a meal and an awkward conversation with the couple. In Carmen's office he gets only a few minutes because she's busy, and the jealous assistant, whom he lusted after while waiting for Carmen, returns him his flowers. Kind of castrating!

Finally an upset Penny rejects him when he shows up in front of her door. She yells at him, doesn't let him in her house and Don gets beaten by her bikers. He has reached the dirty layer of his past. He wakes up alone in his car, in a middle of an empty field, after the harvest, with the flowers he meant to give her. Flowers he didn't buy but pick up on the road. Wild flowers meant for a wild woman. The flowers are garbage, the flowers are broken.

So the meaning of that journey isn't about finding the author of the letter, but about facing himself and his life. When Don is looking for Penny's house, he asks for directions saying that he is lost. And he is indeed, on more than one account. And all the scenes in which he's driving on the road, looking into the rear-view mirror are rather symbolical.

Penny is quite interesting. We just see glimpse of her. She's the only brunette of the bunch and her face is half hidden by her hair. They don't really talk to each other, she doesn't seem able to have a conversation, even her language is minimalist mostly consisting of obscenities. The light is gone, the darkness are coming.

Eventually Don buys a last bouquet for the last woman he's visiting, Michelle Pepe whom we don't get to see. And he doesn't expect to find clues with her this time since her home is a grave.

That fifth woman reveals the metaphysical theme of the movie and Don finally understands and cries against a tree. In that cemetery he's actually kind of facing his own end.

Death is something that Don Juan always tried to ignore but had to face too (in Molière's play, in Baudelaire's poem), hence his social behaviour, a headlong flight. So yes Don Johnston is a true Don Juan, who tried to cheat death during his whole life by never settling, but who can no longer find the illusion of immortality through his conquests. Because Don Juan isn't Romeo and isn't Casanova. There are many variations of the Myth from Tirso de Molina but it has never been simply about a seducer full of sex-appeal and enjoying sex woman after woman. He isn't a Hollywood star. Through the passive character of Johnston, Jarmush here does twist a certain American cliché of Don Juan (the language commonplace) while reviving the essence of the European Myth.

But the film doesn't end in the cemetery. Don goes back home, not knowing if the letter said the truth, but he's obviously hoping that his supposed son does exist. That son might be the only hope left for an aging man.

Jim Jarmush specializes in stories about characters reflecting about themselves, and this film is a good example of his work. Behind the obvious clichés, the easy plot devices (Lolita's look and her naked display or the recurring travel footage) and that unlikely road trip (it makes no sense if you think about it), he tells a metaphysical journey.

Bill Murray's subtle performance isn't far from what he did in Lost In Translation, but it's even more minimalist. He's perfect for the role, and wonderfully plays the emptiness while making us laugh with his little expressions, so is Jeffrey Wight playing a Sganarelle/Winston who gives some comic relief to the film and whose character full of energy and spirit is a good counterpoint to the passive Don.  All the women are also great,  Sharon Stone who played the old flame that hasn't changed too much, and still radiates innocence and freshness, this being intensified by Lolita's presence, Frances Conroy who plays a fading woman who's the shadow of what she once was, Jessica Lange whose strangeness says she's definitely "elsewhere", out of reach (including sexually) and Tilda Swinton whose grunge look and hating attitude represent breaking-up, danger and already announce decomposition.

A worth seeing movie!