Flirt

This is a film about the human behaviour, more or less. Like Jim Jarmousch did on "A Night On Earth", Hal Hartley attempts to reach the depths of a human soul, in a cosmically way, I think. We are more or less the same even if we don't admit it. A specific action can bring equal reaction from almost all of us. That is the point of the film. FLIRT focuses as the title says in flirting. This doesn't necessarily mean that it couldn't be otherwise, on the contrary. Hartley has his own way of processing images (and what a way!). After all he was a cinematographer, he should know. Poetic close-ups, characters more lovable not for what they say or do but for what they might say or do. This particular film studies the same situation in three different corners of the world. The places are not important. This could have happened anywhere and it did. Especially in the last place "Tokyo" the sequences are absolutely marvellous. I will not try to criticize the script as a script. There are people who get paid to do that sort of things. This is not a film to be seen by people with "conventional" eyes. This is not a conventional film. Far from it. Anyone who knows of Hal Hartley's work knows exactly what I mean. A 10 out of 10 for this brilliant film by Hartley, and remember best things in life are the ones we can't quite explain them.

The idea of transporting a story and telling it in three continents is an intriguing one. What we have in Flirt is a weak New York story which verges on the ridiculous when transported to Berlin and Tokyo, particularly when it comes to handgun ownership.

The similarities are unsubtle and contrived, and you feel the actors, who do well in this, are fighting a very stilted script.

Maybe if Hal Hartley had spent more time exploring the differences in how the story would play in different cultures and less time making ‘high quality titillation' (his own description) then it might have made it a better viewing experience.

It's three movie segments using the same story. One takes place in New York, another in Berlin, and the last one in Tokyo. In New York, Emily (Parker Posey) is leaving for Paris and her partner Bill is wondering if he should hook up with someone else. He gets shot in the face by the other woman's husband. The same story repeats in the other cities.

Hal Hartley is trying more stuff. It has his mannered speech and peculiar shooting style. The big idea here is repeating the same story three times. It's a big idea more than a film. I'm not sure what it achieves unless the movie makes them completely different like doing it in Japanese. Experimentation is important and I'm glad that he tried even if it doesn't achieve anything great.

Although I'm a big fan of Hal Hartley's previous work (Trust, The Unbelievable Truth), I was a bit disappointed by Flirt. There are some clever elements to the film, including Hartley's always excellent dialog sequences. The repetition, providing different views on the same plot sequence, was well done. Overall, an above-average movie, particularly for Hartley followers.

Flirt being the fifth Hal Hartley-film I've seen it's also the one I appreciated the least.

You get to follow the same story in different places of the world (NY, Berlin, Tokyo) with different people.

Although the run time wasn't even one and a half hour it felt longer. It must depend on that Berlin and Tokyo didn't really pass my quality control. And that might depend on that the previous Hartley-films I've seen have really been great and that Flirt's NY-episode also was great. It would have worked better as a short film. All by itself. But then seeing almost exactly the same "short story" again only with a twist didn't appeal to me much I discovered later on.

If you like Hartley maybe you should see Flirt all because his trustful actors (Martin Donovan, Elina Löwensohn, Bill Sage, Michael Imperioli), his pretty unique way of making film and of course because of Ned Rifle's music.