Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Man of Flowers
Directed by Paul Cox
Image Entertainment, Inc. 1984 DVD/VHS Feature Film
Not Rated

In Man of Flowers (Australia), director Paul Cox continues his exploration of the soulscape of loneliness he started in Lonely Hearts. Charles Bremer (Norman Kayle) is a wealthy aesthete who lives alone in a mansion with his beautiful possessions. His pastimes include taking courses in drawing and flower arrangement and playing the organ in a church across the street. But the real turn-on in his life is paying Lisa (Alyson best), an artist's model, to perform a striptease for him to the accompaniment of the "Love Duet" from Donizetti's "Lucia Di Lammermoor."

Through a series of flashbacks, the director reveals the familiar source of Charles's sexual confusion and his obsession with art and the imagination. As he did in his previous film, director Paul Cox again manages to make the psychodrama of a troubled individual worth attending to — especially in terms of the insights gained into sexual politics.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat