Flirt

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.

I remembered this film from seeing it 20 years ago. It turns out it didn't age well. I don't know what attracted me to this film back then (as a teenager).

Dwight Ewell is the actor that stayed graved on my memory, and their acting performance is the best thing about this film, and in stark contrast to the other actors, most of them spurting out the lines of the text mechanically.

The concept of the film is not bad, and imagining the exact same dialogue in different context (hetero relation vs gay relation, different cultures) is food for thought, but the film fails to engage and keep it interesting.

The same story told three times in three countries but with different characters and culture values. Hartley goes for the Godardian style but without the political cheekiness. Nice to see Hartley try his hand at something a little different.

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.

I'm a big fan of Hartley, and I went into this film with no idea of what it was about. I felt disappointed pretty quickly. The trademark Harley weirdness felt forced, but more importantly the dialog was less interesting, so that it all felt very static. There were a few interesting moments sprinkled in here and there, but I only kept watching because I hoped that at some point it would all come together and click into gear.

And then, 20 minutes or so in, the story ends, we're in a different country and the same exact story with the same dialog that wasn't interesting the first time is done a second time. And then, when that plays out, a third time.

Why? I have no idea. What is this meant to show us? That people all over the world have boring little stories to tell? It doesn't really matter what Hartley's intent was, the final product is pure tedium, with just a little purely gratuitous nudity thrown in to spice things up.