Mariano Llinás's 'La Flor': The Torn-Apart 12-Hour-and-30-Minute Petals

This 840-minute, river-like work opens with a scene in which a bearded Mariano Llinás explains its peculiar structure. To begin with, the work is composed of a total of six stories: four stories that have a beginning and end in the middle, one story that has a beginning and an end, and one story that begins in the middle and ends the film. The first four extend freely like petals, the fifth acts as a 'sepal' that holds them together, and the sixth serves as the stem that makes everything possible. Furthermore, each has the aspect of a genre film. The first is a B-movie that looks like it was made by Americans with their eyes closed, the second is a mystery-style musical, the third is a spy film, the fourth is a film about the labyrinth of cinema, the fifth is inspired by Jean Renoir's 'A Day in the Country' (or rather, a silent remake of it), and the sixth is a historical drama set in the 19th century.

Also, this film is about four actresses—Laura, Elisa, Valeria, and Pilar—and is a film for them as well. By playing different roles in each work, the four of them play the role of holding everything together. They are members of a four-person theater troupe called Piel de Lava, and among them, Laura is relatively well-known, having appeared in works by Matías Piñeiro. Incidentally, Piñeiro's muse, Agustina Muñoz, also appears in the third part as the enemy commander Fox.

※Since it is such a long work, I wrote this as I finished each part, and the length gradually decreased.

★Part 1: My Angry Sisters Order Battle Preparations (René Char)

A story about four female archaeologists working at a rural archaeology institute and the curse of a mummy that is delivered to them. 80 minutes. The character names are Lucia, Marcela, Janina, and Daniela, in that order. It is no exaggeration to say that, being the first story, time is devoted to distinguishing the four, but since there are 15 hours in total, the leeway is different. The fourth person, Daniela, doesn't even appear until over an hour has passed. In the nearly 8-minute long take at the beginning, Marcela first appears, looking depressed as she manages the busy institute just before a long weekend, dealing with daily problems like covering for colleagues who leave early and the overuse of cleaning fluid. After the boss, who is away on a business trip, sends a mysterious package without a permit, her colleague Lucia takes over the long take, showing off a brilliant repetition. After the noisy 8-minute long take, the cut switches sharply, and the mummy sent by the boss appears quietly. A brilliant contrast between stillness and motion. For some reason, the quiet shot of the slightly out-of-focus mummy conversely heightens the eeriness.

The story unfolds mainly around Janina, who is asked to clean the mummy in the middle of the night and becomes violent after falling under its curse. When the mummy's blindfold is removed, clay eyeballs spill out, and the shot of the glowing eye area overlaps with a shot of a cat's eye, making it an episode focused on eyes, which at least connects to the reason why the handheld camera only used close-ups of faces. The reason for making the whole thing out of focus is not clear.

Episodes of annoying men, such as a power-harassing boss who makes them work through their days off and a perverted detective who uses his authority to force a relationship, play the role of giving a social and modern perspective to the supernatural phenomenon of the mummy's curse, keeping it grounded. The scene where Marcela snaps at the boss, who is still complaining even after causing victims, at a speed that leaves no time to breathe, and the scene where the perverted detective is literally beaten to a pulp are highlights.

The story ends with a scene where Daniela, who has come to deal with the mummy, says to Lucia, who is watching anxiously, 'It could have been worse; she is one of the three queens.' It is the best possible ending for the start of a 15-hour film.

★Part 2: Beware, the World is Closing In Behind You (The Velvet Underground)

A story about a strange organization beginning to move behind the scenes of a former singer couple re-recording a song. 135 minutes. The character names are Flavia, Isabella, Andrea, and Victoria, in that order. Ricky and Victoria succeeded as a male-female duo. Although they are now separated, they seem to have quite a bit of lingering attachment to each other, and they record the re-recording of their duo song separately, but it doesn't go well at all. Victoria tells her assistant Flavia, and Ricky tells his current girlfriend (?) Andrea, the secret story hidden behind the birth of the duo, sorting out their respective feelings. The flashback parts are layered over and over by retelling, and coupled with the sense of unreality shot in black and white, it becomes difficult to distinguish whether it is being beautified or, conversely, stained with darkness as if to tear it away from the beautified birth story. It uses more static long takes than the first part, and since it is clear from the development of the later stories that this part was not particularly necessary, I am a little dumbfounded by the forced nature of the connection.

This is because Flavia seems to have belonged to a suspicious group called 'The Group,' and she is being threatened by Frank, the producer of the re-recording, and followed by an old acquaintance, Marcos. Finally, she faces Isabella, Marcos's new boss, and is forced to participate in an experiment aimed at 'rejuvenation' using the poison of a legendary scorpion called the Centurion that Flavia obtained, but I could not understand the point of dragging it out for 135 minutes when there is no end to the structure.

Compared to the first part where all four cooperated, the conflicts between Flavia and Isabella, and Victoria and Andrea, and their respective backgrounds are well-crafted, so it is a great pity that the connection between the realistic re-recording part and the absurd 'scorpion' part could not have been done better.

However, the songs that appear are incredibly good. Victoria and Ricky's re-recorded song, Ricky and Andrea's new song, and Andrea's past song are played, and all of them are wonderful. In the final phase of the second part, which is billed as a 'musical,' the sight of Victoria and Ricky attempting a joint recording and having a fight just like the lyrics with demonic expressions is a highlight. If it had been 60 minutes with the focus on this, it might have been a masterpiece.

★Part 3: The Universe is in the Night (Nerval)

A story about four female spies who recovered the kidnapped rocket scientist Professor Dreyfus and their battle against another group of four female spies trying to kill them. 340 minutes. The character names are 301, Agent 50, La Niña, and Teresa, in that order. In the South American forest in the 80s, the female spies and the hostage, who are fleeing from pursuers, realize that their own lives are being targeted and kill the members who betrayed them and the attackers. They are not a monolithic group, but rather a collection of dangerous figures in the industry, and Agent 50, who is closest to their employer Casterman and likes to be in charge, serves as the leader for the time being. And the one who tried to kill them was that employer, Casterman, and under him, a group of four female spies led by a mastermind called 'Mother' was operating in the shadows.

Much of the 340-minute length is used not for the battle between the two groups, but for flashbacks of how the four female spies arrived in the South American forest. Teresa, who was scouted as a spy while studying in West Berlin and infiltrates the office of an old man named Rosenthal in London; La Niña, who was the daughter of a legendary guerrilla but was arrested by the government and ended up killing her old comrades; 301, who harbors faint feelings for a heartless male spy who plays the role of her lover many times over many years; and Agent 50, who was involved in a classified information leak incident during her time in the Soviet intelligence department. Stories nested like 'The Manuscript Found in Saragossa' are arranged in uneven lengths, and most of them are designed so that the narration of a man and a woman alternates. And compared to the previous parts where handheld close-ups were used frequently, this part, which uses many fixed long takes and mostly bust shots even when close, falls into a feeling of watching from a slightly bird's-eye view, partly due to the mysteriousness of the characters. Between the episodes, scenes such as the four preparing to intercept Mother and her group at the airfield and the current situation of Casterman, the narrator of the flashbacks, are inserted, and because the time of the episodes and the elapsed time between episodes are loosely linked, one gets the illusion of having spent the night with them for 6 hours.

However, compared to the current part where a tense, quiet atmosphere flows, the flashback part where narrations are crowded together is clearly overloaded with information and tacky. There were also some parts that were not thoroughly executed, such as the narrator painting over the dialogue in Spanish in the flashback part, despite the ingenuity of changing languages between the four and Professor Dreyfus. Even so, the last scene where the four appear side-by-side on one screen for the first time is a highlight. Every scene other than this one where the four are together is excellent.

★Part 4

A story about a director who has been filming for six years and goes missing to film a pink tree called an 'Ipe' and its flowers, ignoring his actresses, while another man investigates. 190 minutes. The character names are their real names. It is a chaotic part that seems to symbolize the behind-the-scenes of this work, which took 10 years to produce, and the four actresses are set up as playing themselves, filming a work called 'Spider' for six years. The story is roughly divided into three parts. One part depicts the argument between the director, who tries to go on location scouting while ignoring the actresses even though filming is not progressing at all, and the women; a part depicting the core members other than the actresses struggling to come up with developments for the six-part epic film 'Spider' while on a trip; and a part where a man investigating the paranormal phenomenon of a car being placed on top of a large tree in the forest reads the diary of the director who owns the car and follows his footsteps. Perhaps because they were too conscious of the 'stories that have a beginning and end in the middle' that have been done about three times in the nine and a half hours up to the third part, it looks like a part that just packs in more loose ends and 'mysteries to hook the viewer' than ever before, but this might be due to the fatigue of repeating similar things for 12 and a half hours. Perhaps realizing this, Llinás has the director in the film say, 'The audience has been shown similar scenes to the point of disgust, and the fantastical elements have decreased.' I agree.

The roles of the actresses seem to be playing themselves with their real names, and they also seem to be playing roles like becoming witches or Casanova's mistresses, and compared to the previous parts, their presence is significantly thinner. Considering the overall flow and the hint that Llinás himself gave at the beginning that 'it is a film about four actresses,' their roles, which seem to have no reason for existence at first glance, will likely emerge in contrast with the other parts. The strange story that stands on the verge of reality and fiction is evident in the last scene, which captures the four actresses standing silently under a bridge, in the forest, and on the riverbank. They are themselves and they are actors. There is no boundary there.

★Part 5

A story that completely recreates Jean Renoir's 'A Day in the Country' in modern times as a black-and-white silent film. 47 minutes. The four actresses do not appear at all. As Llinás revealed at the beginning, it is the only part that has a beginning and an end, but I think that if you completely recreate 'A Day in the Country,' it will naturally have a beginning and an end. By the way, the scene where a man and a woman go out to play in a small boat is replaced with footage of biplane aerobatics, which is modern(?). That kind of modern arrangement is strangely fitting, and it reminded me of the feeling I had when I first watched 'The Green Fog,' which reconstructed 'Vertigo,' of 'so that scene is recreated with this kind of touch.' It seems that Llinás tried to learn the techniques and style by shadowing 'A Day in the Country,' which he considers the greatest masterpiece among the works of Jean Renoir, whom he worships.

Honestly, it is subtle whether it played the role of a 'sepal' that brings together the previous four parts. It might be because I don't like 'A Day in the Country' that much, but I feel that it is a big shortcoming to force the 12 and a half hours of spreading the net wide into these 47 minutes.

★Part 6

A story about four women wandering in the wilderness based on the diary of Sarah S. Evans, a white woman who was kidnapped by Native Americans and escaped. 30 minutes. As mentioned as 'a story that starts in the middle and ends the film,' they are already wandering in the wilderness, they are not that close, and they keep walking aiming for a place where there are people across the river. At least two of them are pregnant, hinting at what happened/what will happen before and after the four women's silent journey. It is produced using the 'likely but unlikely' silent film technique of hazy images projected on a camera obscura and sepia-toned intertitles, and only the scenery was surprising. However, it also feels like content that is really 'just to end it,' so my head hurts when I think that I was accompanied by a theory-first farce for 15 hours.

Within the 840 minutes, the roles of the actresses and the roles of acting also change. In the first part, there is a conversation between the four actresses; in the second part, recollections by the performers are inserted; and in the third part, recollections by a narrator are inserted. Then, in the fourth part, reality and fiction begin to mix while being labeled with various labels such as actresses and witches, and in the fifth part, they disappear completely. If we consider the sixth part as the original landscape before the film, it can be said that what supports film art is the story, the scenery, and the viewer's imagination. Tracing from there, 'A Day in the Country' is in a position like the master's master, and the remaining four can be seen as 'genres' that 'stole' techniques from there and developed. Llinás says about genre films, 'I think it's a way for filmmakers to get to what they like,' and by daring to use the clichés of genre films, he may be throwing them back as irony. Also, the fact that the narration increases as the parts go by, the acting with voice decreases at the same time, and finally it becomes completely silent (Part 5) and silent & intertitles (Part 6) must also be showing the gradual transition in acting and expression methods.

However, overall, there is a stiffness and a theory-first feeling, as if it were an academic presentation. Just as the director and his party were too bound by the concept of 'Spider' in the fourth part, this work continues to be bound by the concept of 'flower.' In particular, the first four parts only aim to spread an attractive net, and it seems that they only ended up explaining Llinás's theory as images so as to follow the shape of a 'flower.' Since each episode only has a conceptual meaning, wouldn't it be enough to read the synopsis, watch the content a little bit, and think about the director's theory?

Through this long film, I found out that I am very bad at films with a lot of narration. I will give it a rating in consideration of the exhilaration of the first part, the songs of the second part, the setting of the third part, and the visuals of the sixth part, but honestly, I don't think there is any need to watch this. I thought that 'the schemer is drowned by his own schemes' is a phrase made for this film.

・Work Data

Original Title: La Flor
Running Time: 840 minutes
Director: Mariano Llinás
Production: 2018 (Argentina)

・Rating: 50 points