Autour du film
-Au cours du récit, le voisin de Don lui remet un CD l'invitant à l'écouter au cours de son périple. Un climat musical très particulier - l'éthno-jazz de Mulatu Astatke - baignera ainsi l'ensemble du film notamment autour de la musique Yèkèrmo Sèw.Une certaine reconnaissance publique du jazz éthiopien des années 1970 sera consécutive à la sortie du film, notamment aux États-Unis avec un second souffle pour la collection Éthiopiques éditée par le label parisien Buddha Musique.
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Distinctions et Récompenses
Grand prix du jury du festival de Cannes 2005.
Prix du public au Festival du film de Cambridge en 2005.
Meilleur second rôle masculin (Jeffrey Wright) aux SDFCSA en 2005.
Lion tchèque du meilleur film étranger en 2006.
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Nominations
Meilleur acteur dans une comédie ou un film musical (Bill Murray) aux Satellite Awards en 2005.
Prix du meilleur film non-européen aux Prix du cinéma européen en 2005.
British Independent Film Award du meilleur film étranger en 2005.
Bodil du meilleur film américain en 2006.
Meilleur second rôle masculin (Jeffrey Wright) aux Independent Spirit Awards en 2006.
Ruban d'argent du réalisateur du meilleur film étranger en 2006.
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Pink flower arrangements
Author: jotix100 from New York
20 August 2005
Jim Jarmusch returns to the screen with an immensely pleasing film that looks extremely simple, but in fact, it's what is not being said that really is at the center of the picture. Mr. Jarmusch is one director that loves to work with an economy of everything. His films seem to be crying for a set decorator, but that is misleading, because it's the simplicity that seems to work in most cases.If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you should stop reading here.At the center of the story is Don Johnston, whose name seems to provoke in most people a recognition by associating it to the actor, Don Johnson. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Don is a taciturn man, who when we meet him is being dumped by his last girlfriend.
Don Johnston, with his deadpan demeanor, appears to be a man that has gone through life on auto pilot. In fact, when he receives the letter that will, in a way, change his life, he doesn't even react. His solution to the problem is to show this letter to his next door neighbor, Winston. Little does Don knows, but Winston maps out a plan to get him involved in the solution of the mystery he is presented. We accompany Don in a trip of discovery to reacquaint himself with former lovers who might have been instrumental in sending the pink letter.
Thus we meet Laura, the closet organizer, a widow now, living with a precocious daughter, Lolita, who seems to have jumped from the Nabokov's book, in all her precociousness. Then, there is Dora, the real estate woman who lives in a development in which all the houses look alike. We meet Carmen, the pet communicator, a sort of animal analyst who has turned her love interest another way. Finally, we are given a glimpse of Penny, who couldn't care less to see Don one more time.The opening sequence that sets the story in motion is nothing but perfection. We watch the fateful letter at the beginning when it's being dropped in the mail box right up to its delivery through Don's mail slot.
Jim Jarmusch, and his amazing cast have done wonders with this film. Bill Murray is sensational as the jaded Don Johnston. Once again, this actor clearly shows he is at the top of the game. Jeffrey Wright, one of the best young actors working in films and in the theater these days, makes a valuable contribution as Winston. The women in Don's life are fantastic. Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Julie Delpy, Tilda Swinton, and Jessica Lange are seen at their best. Finally, two excellent turns by Alexis Dziena as Lolita and Chloe Sevigny as an assistant to Carmen.Mr. Jarmusch has created a film that says a lot about how modern relationships are being practiced these days.
Author: MisterWhiplash from United States
12 August 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It would be hard for me to recommend this film to some people, even if as a particular film-goer as myself it kept me in my seat as it went by with its deliberate (or slow as most would put it) pace. For an actor like Bill Murray, this is a 180 turn from his classic comedy roles in Caddyshack and Ghostbusters (both films I love for his style of quick witted, instantly quotable lines)- this time, as I've read, he and writer/director Jim Jarmusch took the subtle, subdued approach of Buster Keaton, but done all Murray's way. He continues the sort of 'phase' he's been in starting with Lost in Translation and going somewhat into The Life Acquatic- now his is reactions which make up the best parts, and the occasional zingers work well against the supporting cast.
The reason one might consider Broken Flowers as Jarmusch's most 'mainstream' film is because it is filmed a little more like one, very steady camera-work, and seeming a little more like a Hollywood type film with the cast (Sharon Stone, Francis Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Jeffrey Wright among others). And the story seems like something one might find in a conventional romantic comedy- Murray plays Don Johnston (not Johnson, as a running joke in the film), a fading Don Juan type who is very well off but also rather isolated with himself. Around the same time his current girlfriend leaves him, he finds a mysterious pink colored letter in a pink envelope. Wright, playing an amusing neighbor of Don's, sets him up to go on a search to find the long lost son the letter alludes to. He reluctantly goes on the search.
What is interesting about a filmmaker like Jarmusch, with only a few others I can think of, is that his pace and style and way the film unfolds, my heartbeat never goes too fast or too slow with the rhythm, and it stays consistent. When the climax to the film comes, it's more contemplative than exciting. As Don visits the four women, who each give him something different to offer (if not answering his questions for the 'mystery'), the comedy kicks in, but as with the scenes with Wright's character Winston, it's not often 'laugh-out loud' funny, but the wit is there. Some of it is surprising (the daughter character, Lolita, brings a big laugh), and just strange (Lange's job as an 'animal communicator'), but it's often not so much about hitting for big punches as for more realistic ones. We get long (some might say too long) breaks as Don drives in his car, and then something more comes along. For me, at least, it was rather compelling in a minimalist way, which is what Jarmusch is a master of.
Some have said that the ending was unfulfilled, that it didn't serve a purpose and left the film with unanswered questions. I found the ending to really be even more fulfilling, perhaps on an existential or some kind of unspeakable level, than something that would typically be cooked up in Hollywood. As Murray stand in the street, the camera moving around him and stopping on him, it had me thinking and finally feeling some emotional attachment to Don. Early in the film, he's almost too subdued, and has an upper-middle class status that brings a detachment like with a lead in an Antonioni film. He says he's content with being on his own doing whatever, but by the end he has come full circle. Murray plays these last couple of scenes wonderfully, bringing one to see that the film is not about the usual solving of a mystery of 'who is my son'.
It's about searching, and finding a connectedness to people. This, again, may sound off-putting to people who just want to be simply entertained, and it may be boring &/or pretentious to the core mainstream fans of Murray. But his performance, and Jarmusch's direction, makes its best way in a realm of its own, taking a simple premise and giving it an original take, and substance, and a specific rhythm. In other words, Jarmusch fans need not be frightened that it looks less 'artsy' than a film like Dead Man or Mystery Train, and for those who loved Murray's work in Lost in Translation will find a similar wavelength to cling to.
Author: nycritic14 September 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It's almost as if Ivan, the Lothario from Almodovar's WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN had stepped into a parallel world where of all of the women who he had been involved with (and in some way, left them with a broken heart), one of them (Pepa, the one who got pregnant in Almodovar's film) had decided to tell him she was the mother of his 19-year old son via a letter that arrives in the mail one day out of the clear blue.
That Don Johnston (Bill Murray) is seen sitting on his sofa watching "Don Juan" on TV in complete apathy as his current girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) is packing her items and leaving is a clue of who this man is. That he couldn't be more passive indicates something is inherently wrong with this man. No wonder he spends most of the time alone in this movie, unable to connect.
But the arrival of the letter -- written on a typewriter in pink stationery and enclosed in an equally pink envelope acts as a catalyst to push this man out of his shell and into the world of the living. A friend and neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), tracks down five females with whom he could have been involved with at the time, this fathering this unknown son. Off Don goes to see which of them is the mother, less out of an actual interest as much as a way of knowing what has become to these women.
They couldn't be more disparate in nature: Laura (Sharon Stone), the first, is carefree and bears the mark of a fading beauty, a woman who was once stunning and still is, in a bleached way. Her daughter, appropriately named Lolita (Alexis Dziena), shamelessly flirts with Don while talking on her cell phone and again the question arises: what does this ineffectual man have that seems to attract women? The second is Dora (Frances Conroy). Married into success, she is the shadow of a woman who was once something of a hippie, but has since become a successful real-estate agent living in complacency -- the perfect North-American housewife. Except that she has no children, and seems to harbor some feelings for Don as conveyed in her sad eyes, and wistful body language.
Carmen comes next. Played by Jessica Lange, she is a woman who might have been involved with Don at one point, but now seems to have traded his gender for the female (Chloe Sevigny, acting as her assistant in the business Lange runs). There is little in common with Carmen and Don, but he has less in common with Penny (Tilda Swinton), a woman who lives in trailer-park hell and whom he has swift but ferocious altercation with... or the other way around. She was the one who abandoned Don, and would rather never see him again, and the mention of a son blows things out of proportion as two men beat him unconscious, not before he gets a glimpse of a pink typewriter cast dejected on the ground some feet away. Could she be the one? The fifth, Michelle, is dead. Murray has a silent scene, sitting forlorn in front of this woman's tomb, looking as if he is about to cry. He never does, which makes this quiet scene even more emotional.
Bill Murray has here what could be the role that has him out-do the sad man he played in LOST IN TRANSLATION. His impassivity is something not many actors could do, with those semi-dead eyes and that limpness that suggests a man slowly melting into silent desperation -- a man who cannot relate with people even as he tries. Even his conversations with his neighbor seem drained of real life... he seems to be on autopilot, at first going through the motions, later developing a real interest in solving this mystery and patching things up, if such a thing is indeed possible.
The women, however, all have brief roles, and all create plausible roles that leave an impression long after they've been gone from the screen altogether, which brings a feeling of something vital that Don has lost -- maybe irrevocably so. With the exception of Tilda Swinton's majestic fury, all of them have a sadness just brimming below the surface, expressed differently, in their own acting styles.
Jim Jarmusch has made a film that is as European as can be -- a film that offers no clear solutions of what this letter may mean, or if Don has reached some form of understanding of himself. For an American director to be able to make this kind of movie that would only appeal to a select public and be successful is an event in its own. His movie, like Antonioni's BLOW UP, is less about a mystery than about the emptiness within a man who has left a lot of unsolved issues behind.
Author: nicoicon1 from Cannes, France
19 May 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I am a film studies student fortunate enough to be at the Cannes Festival and somehow fenangled my way into the premiere of Broken Flowers, in fact sitting in the aisle diagonal to Jim, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Julie Deply. The movie was utterly satisfying for me. I had an avid fear that it would end up ANOTHER Bill Murray movie, which is practically a genre in and of itself these days, although Jarmusch already reinvigorated his classic demeanor in Coffee and Cigarettes. Much to my relief, Broken Flowers provides many a moment for Murray to shine, for it is truly a film centered around him.
It is more of a return to Jarmusch's earlier films, rather than the second round of linked stories like Mystery Train and Night on Earth or the play with genre of the latter works. Unlike Stranger than Paradise or Down By Law, however, the focus is not on a trio but one man, which opens the door for more detailed character development than Jarmusch is normally willing to give. I don't want to say that it is his most accessible work, but a more mature and developed one. It has the most structured storyline to date but as usual, Jarmusch always remains restrained. Jeffrey Wright is a delight, and Swinton is unrecognizable.
The scene between Murray, Frances Conroy (what a treat for a Six Feet Under Fan) in particular received applause from the crowd, as did the film as a whole. In many ways the film reminded me of About Schmidt, particularly the ending, but was much more minimal and appealing to all ages. The soundtrack, an ethiopoan musician's take on spy music, added a great touch and the whimsical play with mystery and clues is continuously weaved throughout. There is no closure, no emotional overtow, and no real payoff, but the film is very well crafted. I am still trying to articulate it and incredibly sleep deprived but feel free to contact me with any questions. I saw that no one had posted yet and i thought that as a complete Jarmusch dork, I should extend my knowledge. Later I'll actually provide a good review.
Author: DAVID SIM from United Kingdom
2 November 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Ghostbusters. Groundhog Day. Lost in Translation. Broken Flowers. Whenever I'm having a conversation with someone about Bill Murray, I always mention this list of films as the ones that elicited his best performances. Because each one of them is specifically tailored to his talents, and brings out the best in him. People always agree with the first three. But when I mention the last film I always get blank stares from people. I can tell what's going through their minds. "What was that last one again?" A clear example of how overlooked and unappreciated Broken Flowers is. A true shame because it's one of Bill Murray's finest films.
I've always wanted to see Bill Murray in a road trip film. I've always thought his wry observations would make sublime viewing and he doesn't disappoint. Although there are some people who may be a bit frustrated by this film. Because like Lost in Translation's Bob Harris, Broken Flowers comes at a point in Bill Murray's career where he's adopted a much more minimalist mode. Instead of the dry sarcasm and laconic style of 20 years ago, he's become much more subtle. He's still as hilarious as ever, but it's harder to find. It's worth the effort, but some people might not be willing to do so. Which would explain the film's poor box office response.
Don Johnston (with a T) must be quite a smooth talker since he's seduced many women into bed. But you'd never know that with his impassive face and dry inflections.
He's either unwilling or unable to commit to a serious relationship. And in the film's opening scenes, we witness the tail-end of his latest tryst.Just as Sherry is walking out, a pink letter arrives in the post. The colour pink is something that shows up frequently in this film. The letter was typed, and has no return address. And contains a shocking piece of information. Don has a son. One of his lady-friends bore a child to him 19 years ago, and now their son has decided to track him down. When I used the word shocking, that would be the normal response from anyone else. But Don is not just anybody. If he were shocked, that would be a miracle.
In fact if he even cracked a smile that would be an achievement. Don is such a closed book of a man you'd need a crowbar to wedge the pages open. We know he's a successful and rich man through computers (although he doesn't own a single one), and he sleeps with women. But nothing seems to move him. Not even this letter. But it has a wowing effect on Don's friend Winston (Jeffrey Wright).
Winston fancies himself an amateur sleuth, and wants to put the pieces of this latest mystery together for Don. Winston provides an appealing zesty counterpoint to Don's eternal narcolepsy. It's almost a shame Winston didn't join Don on his road trip. What fun that would have been! Winston puts together the list of the women Don has slept with, and nudgingly advises him to check each one of them out, with a pink bouquet. They should get the message. And this experience could be good for Don. He might find what he's looking for. If he knew what to look for.
Although Broken Flowers is admittedly episodic, its a consistently engaging, refreshingly intelligent road trip movie. Don meets each one of the five women on his list in turn. The first is Laura (Sharon Stone). She has a daughter, Lolita, who seems unaware she's one step away from becoming a whore. Laura is the widow of a NASCAR driver, and perhaps represents an exciting life Don has denied himself. They spend the night together. We don't see the details, which would have been fascinating anatomically.
The details of whether or not any of the women he meets might be the mother are left deliberately ambiguous. Each one Don meets is like the story of his best forgotten past. It might be a stretch to say they all represent a facet to his personality (if it even exists), but if you look carefully at Don's face during these encounters, you will see the stellar performance Bill Murray conveys. With a simple arched eyebrow or a turn of the head, Murray communicates volumes about his inner turmoil.
When he meets Dora (Frances Conroy), she is in a controlling relationship with her husband, that is gradually unveiled during a surprisingly hilarious dinner table sequence. The food on the dinner plates are methodically positioned, and it takes a while for Don to tuck in, as if summing up the insanity of this household. Don is the grand master of understatement.
After Don encounters Carmen (Jessica Lange), he finds she communicates with animals, something Don takes at face value, and in this case, his straight face is entirely appropriate. His next encounter ends in violence. Not all of Don's women are happy to see him. And finally, the last love on his list is in her grave. Murray hides his grief behind his understated expression in one of Broken Flower's most moving moments.
At the end, Don knows less than he did before. Any one of those women could be the mother, and Don has seen more sides to the human condition over the last few days than he has in a lifetime. He's left with no easy answers, and it all concludes on a fascinating note, when a surprise revelation finally hits home with him. When the past catches up to you in the present, you won't always like what you see.
A truly underrated gem from Bill Murray. This is his show all the way. It's just as good as anything else he's ever done, and since the road trip is one of my favourite genres, Broken Flowers has become an essential film for me. An utter classic!
In "Broken Flowers", writer and director Jim Jarmusch ("Down by Law") tells the story of an middle aged Don Juan that after gets dumped by his girlfriend discovers in a letter sent to him that he has a son from a relationship from the past and that this son might be searching for him.
Bill Murray plays Don Johnston (there are many jokes about his name's similarity with Don Johnson), an almost lonely figure that along with his detective friend (Jeffrey Wright in a extremely funny role) wants to meet his son but first he needs to search the mysterious woman that delivered the letter. All these two have is clues present in the letter and a list of Don's former girlfriends.
In his search Don travels through many places and met his former dates, now many of them successful womens, and other not so much. He encounters a widow (Sharon Stone) preceded by her teenage daughter, Lolita (that's not an coincidence), a real estate agent (Frances Conroy) married with the sympathetic Ron (Christopher McDonald), an specialist in animal communication (Jessica Lange) and the rude Penny (Tilda Swinton, unrecognizable). To each of them he brings a flower and their reaction to his sudden appearance change to one another. This is not a conventional comedy filled with punchlines, or dumb moments. No, Jim uses almost the same technique that Sofia Coppola used on "Lost in Translation" (Murray's look and moroseness are similar).
The screenplay often shows sharp moments of true funny in every scenes with Jeffrey Wright as Winston (the cell phone talk between he and Don are pretty funny) or Don's reaction when Dr. Carmen tells how she can listen to animals. It's not just that. This movie is a whole reflection of an middle aged men who stops to act like an young boy and finds a meaning to his pathetic life after knows he has a son. The quiet story, and the very slow movement of the film may irritate some viewers but stick it until the end, you'll be very surprised with Don's journey. Bill Murray once again delivers a notable good performance as good as his most memorable characters Phil Connors in "Groundhog Day" and Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation". A Must see! 10/10
Author: Ghost-Cat from Louisville, KY
6 January 2006
A must see for all Carlos Castaneda fans. I patiently read through all 23 pages of comments and found only 2 people out of 229 who got a clue what is the movie about. The movie did get a high rating yet 99% of all people seem to be spiritually challenged (in 2001 it was 98%). Very sad state of the world.
Anyway, here is a clue to those who is capable of Seeing. River is a symbol of unconditional love. Note the name of the cemetery - Riverview Cemetery. Also note the name of the street where Don lives, the name of the restaurant where John-ston and Win-ston meet. The movie is full of symbols, it looks like I have to watch it quite a few times before I understand even the half of it. I wonder if Jarmusch himself knows what he created.
Author: netwallah from The New Intangible College
15 November 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Bill Murray has somehow come to possess a face like the side of a concrete jetty. Big waves break over him and he just sits there. Maybe his eyes flicker to one side for a moment. He is the kind of man who once did things and now things happen to him. Too tired to be moody, he's the Inertia Man. Here he plays Don Johnston, an "aging Don Juan," as his latest girlfriend (Julie Delpy) calls him when she's leaving. His response is to sit, and then lie, on his couch, looking still but not peaceful. Maybe that's Murray's specialty. Anyway, a letter arrives, in a pink envelope, telling him he's got an 18-year old son.
His happy neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a would-be detective, sends Don out to visit girlfriends from twenty years earlier. He goes, reluctantly, and first he finds Laura (Sharon Stone), who's got a daughter named Lolita (Alexis Dziena), much given to flirting and stepping into rooms naked. Laura's wistful and sweet, but no son, no typewriter. Then Dora (Frances Conroy), who's in real estate—a very uncomfortable dinner with her hail-fellow-well-met husband. Then Carmen (Jessica Lange), a pet communication specialist, who rebuffs Don firmly.
Then the angry Penny (Tilda Swinton), now a biker, whose companion punches Don and leaves him unconscious in the back seat of his rented car in a harvested cornfield. He goes home and lies down on his couch. The next day he gets another letter in a (differently shaped) pink envelope, from Sherry, who may still care for him. Outside the restaurant he sees a young man he's beginning to think might be the son who's supposed to be out looking for him, but when he clumsily broaches the subject---"Look, I know you think I'm your father..." the guy tells him he's crazy and runs away as fast as he can.
Don tries to run after him but stops on the street corner and looks off into the distance. The camera circles him slowly, one and a half revolutions, and stops on his face. Is there an expression underneath the fixity of his gaze? An expression of what? He's told the boy the past is gone, the future isn't here yet, so all we have is the present. But that's not really true at all—the past still exists in connections that run right up into present lives, even the lives of people who imagine they live for the moment, like Don Juan, for instance, or Don Johnston.
And the future holds everything we desire and everything we fear, and so we're locked into that, too, hoping for enough of what we want and not too much of what we fear. He's standing at that crossroad. The movie is sometimes funny—the flirty Lo has no idea why somebody might find her name a curious choice, and so her sexiness is funny rather than, well, hot. And it sometimes sets Murray's character to suffer discomfort, humiliation, pain, and a grinding awareness of time slipping away. And it's filled with clues and recurring images (the basketball backboards, pink roses, the rear-view mirror) that might or might not lead somewhere. Jarmusch is a master at letting films end with a sense of their own momentum skidding out past the end of the story. Very, very strange and very, very good work.
Broken flowers is an excellent movie in which Bill Murray plays Don Johnston,an ageing Don Juan who is stuck in depression, his life is empty with no meaning and his latest girlfriend has just walked out on him. Don can't even find the words to make her stay so instead he slumps on his sofa back in depression. He receives a pink letter in the mail from an old flame informing him that he has a son who is 19 and may come looking for him. The letter is unsigned and has no return address.
Don shows this letter to his neighbour, Winston, Who is a fan of mystery novels and is something of a wannabe sleuth. Winston convinces Don to visit the women from his past who could possibly be the mother. Don is reluctant to go and is not interested in the letter or the truth behind it but Winston convinces Don to do it, arranges the trip based on the five possible women Don thinks it could be and he sets of on his journey, ready to look for clues rather than to ask the women outright. Which means look for a typewriter and anything pink. Don encounters 4 of these women and one of them is now dead.
The movie is set at a slow pace, and you are with Don every step of the way. This adds to the feel of the film, and it feels very much like real life. It has laughs along the way but is ultimately a sad film.We are not given any real back story on Don, except he made his money in computers. This however is not important as each encounter reveals something more about him. It is very minimalist and very symbolic. The scenes of Don travelling in his car, looking forward at the road ahead,at the future and in the mirror at the past, Symbolise his philosophy at the end.
"The past is gone the future isn't here yet....all we have is now.. the present" Bill Murray gives an exceptional performance in the lead role, subtle and deadpan, but at the same time revealing. Every move on his face says so much without words. The supporting cast are also excellent, Jeffery Wright as Winston and Sharon Stone, Francis Connroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton as the women from his past.The scene at the grave and the scenes at the end of the movie are very powerful as Don has to face the consequences of his life and is awoken to what could have and what could be.
This movie is a Jim Jarmusch movie and will not be to everyones taste, but I found it very thought provoking, funny, sad and most of all very real. An excellent movie.
Author: pressboard from Brooklyn nyc
7 August 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I love Jarmusch's style - there are very few directors today who approach film-making in such a unique way (maybe Todd Solondz). This movie was incredible. I like Murray and he excels in his role as a retired computer businessman? who is well-retired and believes he has a son from a lover 20 years earlier. If you have a Short-Attention-Span than this movie and Jarmusch are not for you. The pacing fits the character development and the silence-as-script approach that is pure Jarmusch.
As he visits each of his lovers in turn to surreptitiously detect his sons' mother (and the writer of the letter that starts his quest), he encounters women who are the same as he remembers and at the same time very different. His journey raises more questions about all concerned than it answers and he does not know which way to turn, so he turns in all directions. I highly recommend this and hope it gets a wider distribution.
