Hey folks, Harry here with the scent analysis of HARRISON'S FLOWERS by Capone. Sounds like the film has a few issues with scent-imentality... ahem... but otherwise from what Capone says... it sounds like damn fine film. So check it out....

Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. I have to confess to feeling a little weird and inappropriate writing about HARRISON’S FLOWERS in light of what what happened concerning journalist Daniel Pearl’s execution in Pakistan. Not to give up too much information about myself, but in my non-Capone world, I too am a journalist. In the fields that my magazine covers, I doubt I’d ever become a part of any life threatening situation like Mr. Pearl, but I was deeply saddened to learn about the brutal way his life was ended. In my years as a general assignment reporter for a relatively prominent East Coast newspaper, I had my share of angry citizens waving guns at me or threatening to beat the crap out of my then-scrawny ass. But I can’t even imagine what Pearl was going through.

I saw HARRISON’S FLOWERS about a week ago. It was a special screening for, among other people, Newsweek employees (the title character is a photojournalist for the magazine), and was attended by one of the film’s stars, Adrien Brody. Under different circumstances, the Q&A afterwards probably would have focuses on Brody and his short but impressive set of performances. As it turned out, with Daniel Pearl’s situation still unresolved and weighing heavy on our minds, most of the questions were directed at a Newsweek photographer who had been detained for about two weeks by Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War. This sounds like a short time, but as he reminded us, he didn’t know at the time how long they would hold him for. He was lucky.

HARRISON’S FLOWERS is an extremely effective film about a different war under different circumstances. David Strathairn is Harrison, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for Newsweek, who has decided to accept one last assignment before retiring from the real life-threatening and time-consuming work that keeps him from his family. His wife, Sarah (Andie MacDowell), is obviously glad to hear this; she too works for the magazine. The assignment in question is a trip to a war-torn Yugoslavia in the early days of the unthinkably violent conflict between Bosnians and Serbs. Western media really didn’t understand at this point (the early 1990s) how systematic the torture and murders were in a place where then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic coined the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” Harrison disappears soon after arriving, and it is reported to Newsweek that he was killed in a building collapse. Sarah, not having felt something sever in her heart (or words to that effect), believes he is still alive and sets out the Yugoslavia to find him. Some people may be put off by her apparent abandonment of her children, but it makes sense in this context. Whether she’s crazy or not, she’s convinced her husband is alive.

With what appears to be relative ease, Sarah manages to get into Yugoslavia and rent a car to drive her into the heart of an ever-more-dangerous war zone. Within minutes of entering what appears to be a minor skirmish, she is pulled from her car and nearly raped on the hood. A man acting as Sarah’s guide is also pulled from the car and shot point blank in the head inches from her. Soon after this incident that nearly throws her into shock, Sarah hooks up with a group of photojournalist (many of whom knew her husband well), including those played by Adrien Brody and Brendan Gleeson. Brody’s performance sets to tone for the film as far as I’m concerned. He’s fearless because he has to be to survive. If he acknowledges how dangerous what he is doing is, he’ll freeze or worse, be reckless.

It occurred to me about halfway through the film that HARRISON’S FLOWERS unfolds like a modern take on APOCALYPSE NOW. For the bulk of the film, Sarah and the other photojournalists drive from one bombed out horror show to another in a tiny jeep with giant “T.V.” letters all over it. They stop at each place to observe or take cover or snap photos of atrocities. The closer they get to their final destination (a hospital where Harrison might be), the more horrific things are. Everywhere they look, there is killing for the sake of killing. The age or sex of the victim doesn’t matter. It’s gruesome and extremely tough to watch. As photojournalists, they (mistakingly) seem almost untouchable as they are given access to the worst the world has to offer. French director Elie Chouraqui has composed some of the most realistic scenes of brutality I’ve ever seen, while also managing to capture some truly odd and unlikely moments of humor and compassion. Despite a few sappy moments in the last 10 minutes of the film, HARRISON’S FLOWERS (a reference to a greenhouse that Harrison maintains at home) is a singularly explosive and timely work, with Adrien Brody practically jumping off the screen with twitchy, adrenaline-fed power and Andie MacDowell putting forth a performance I never thought she could pull off.

Capone

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