Harrison's Flowers

Rating:
Summary: Somber story of love overcoming dangers of war
Review: The plot is shaky, unrealistic - A beautiful, loving wife (Andie MacDowell) of a photo journalist (David Strathairn) is determined to find her husband, who is presumed dead in war-torn Yugoslavia. What makes this implausible is that the wife's character displays no previous signs of strength and determination before her perilous journey to Europe. She's pretty much the standard working/soccer mom type in a minivan before her husband's disappearance. Therefore her character isn't properly developed to convince the viewer of her strength to undertake such a dangerous mission.
The strongest performance is Adrien Brody. He's an embittered, jealous small-time photo-journalist who hasn't reached the notorious ranks of Harrison Lloyd (Strathairn) et al. He swears a lot, he's unkempt, agitated. His performance in this film is a scene stealer - a foreshadowing of an up and coming career for Mr. Brody.
Underused are David Strathairn (always a fine performance consisting of subtle facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) and Elias Koteas - what can I say about him? He's enigmatic, there's something about him - wry, natural, fun.
Ms. MacDowell's acting has been mediocre, at best, in the past, but she shows promise here. I suspect her natural-looking beauty distracts viewers from a natural-feeling performance.
I feel the father-son relationship wasn't emphasized as much as it should have been.
The war horrors are shocking, atrocious, gruesome.
It's a so-so movie that could have been better.

Rating:
Summary: Somber story of love overcoming dangers of war
Review: The plot is shaky, unrealistic - A beautiful, loving wife (Andie MacDowell) of a photo journalist (David Strathairn) is determined to find her husband, who is presumed dead in war-torn Yugoslavia. What makes this implausible is that the wife's character displays no previous signs of strength and determination before her perilous journey to Europe. She's pretty much the standard working/soccer mom type in a minivan before her husband's disappearance. Therefore her character isn't properly developed to convince the viewer of her strength to undertake such a dangerous mission.
The strongest performance is Adrien Brody. He's an embittered, jealous small-time photo-journalist who hasn't reached the notorious ranks of Harrison Lloyd (Strathairn) et al. He swears a lot, he's unkempt, agitated. His performance in this film is a scene stealer - a foreshadowing of an up and coming career for Mr. Brody.
Underused are David Strathairn (always a fine performance consisting of subtle facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) and Elias Koteas - what can I say about him? He's enigmatic, there's something about him - wry, natural, fun.
Ms. MacDowell's acting has been mediocre, at best, in the past, but she shows promise here. I suspect her natural-looking beauty distracts viewers from a natural-feeling performance.
I feel the father-son relationship wasn't emphasized as much as it should have been.
The war horrors are shocking, atrocious, gruesome.
It's a so-so movie that could have been better.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't manage the depth of its subject
Review: The reviewer who gave this movie 1 star is on to something, although he missed some fundamental points. Harrison *didn't* want to go. He had to. This is beat into our heads through a number of different things. Including him asking to quit in the first place, his anxiety when he watches the news about Sudan, and the conversation on the way to the Pulitzers with Sarah.

Unfortunately, that is, more or less, where my disagreement with him stops. This is another movie, like Chocolat and A Beautiful Mind, full of happy endings and triumph (of *love*) over incredible odds. The pain is short and intense, and forms a good story for the grandkids. Everything is good in the end, without any serious account of why. This is clearly a third-rate script. Perhaps the most offensive part of the movie is that Yaeger ends up writing a book about the experience. (Or, at least, I got that feeling that it a book. If it was not that, the narration there was tremendously weak, and the fact that there is this uncertainty is a tremendous blemish on the film)

However, the film is visually compelling. America and Western Europe has not experienced war in our backyards, and it is very important for us to see the seriousness and nature of these conflicts. Especially because this is the nature of *all* of the conflicts in the world right now. We would do well to ponder this fact.

Too bad the quality and seriousness of the high-level subject couldn't be presented with the psychological plausibility and artistic skill that it deserves.

Rating:
Summary: A Journey through Hell on Earth....
Review: The wife of a photojournalist thought killed in the early days of the Yugoslavian civil war, believes her husband is still alive and rashly makes her way to the heart of that hellish conflict, with the aid of some other cynical war photographers.

You may find the premise a bit incredible, but make the leap of faith that the character of the wife does, because it will take you, as it does her, on a journey through Hell on earth, and shock and stun you as it does this sophisticated, yet naive, middle-class American woman.

The film accomplishes something important in that it manages to take a place and time with events we think we know about, and shove it into our consciousness with the shock of the new! How can people behave this way? Where is sanity and justice and morality? Do these terms even have relevance in the face of furious and indifferent cruelty. The wife's love and determination is nearly overwhelmed by the fear and violence surrounding her.

A very competent cast does well, with Adrien Brody a standout. But this is a director's showcase and Elie Chouraqui and company do an outstanding job in shaking out our complacency and reminding us again of the horrors of that nasty little conflict and its "ethnic cleansing" thugs and monsters.

Rating:
Summary: The Atrocity of WAR
Review: This film was released at the beginning of 2001 in Europe.

It is one of the most schocking and real accounts of war that has ever been shown on screen. The story of international reporters reaching the front line in the war in former Yugoslavia, Harrison's Flowers will leave you speechless for hours after the show. As the four hoursmen of the apocalypse, hunger, destruction, misery, and death, run rampant through the villages of Croatia, goosbumps will cover your skin as the wife of a famous photographer journeys to Vukovar in search of her lost husband. A definite must see, a cry for peace.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Movie
Review: This is a great movie. Very graphic details of the war. Shows great courage and the love and determination that comes with loving your spouse so deeply. My husband is deployed OCONUS right now so hits home a bit. I know it's good as I was up at 2am and stayed awake til the end. I would watch it again and recomment to anyone. You should definately check this one out.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome Movie
Review: This is a great movie. Very graphic details of the war. Shows great courage and the love and determination that comes with loving your spouse so deeply. My husband is deployed OCONUS right now so hits home a bit. I know it's good as I was up at 2am and stayed awake til the end. I would watch it again and recomment to anyone. You should definately check this one out.

Rating:
Summary: Harrison's Flowers
Review: This movie is haunting. It is the core of humaness laid bare for all to see. The horror of war is depicted, as I can only imagine, as well as could be.
The actually of the scenes, I'm sure, are only a small percentage of the reality.
The movie reveals what people will do to one another for whatever reason, politics, religion, predjudice...and more.
The subject as to why & how photo journalists do what they do is deeply explored. Is it money, competition, compassion, devotion to ones beliefs or just the adrenalin rush of the situation? How do their families tolerate the seperation & fear that their significant other may never come home? What holds this all together?
I see many things in a movie, not just from the entertainment point but the story, director interpertation, the actors portrayal, the depth of the characters history and where they come from both intelectually, emotionally, psychologically & spirtually.
I recommend this movie only to person's who view film as art, expression & interest in reality based screen plays. This is not a film for entertainment or superficial thinkers.

Rating:
Summary: A woman's love is challenged by the madness of war
Review: War photographers must feel a sense of impotence while plying their trade. They record the horrors of violent conflict, but can do little to stop it. Pictures may not always even provide a context for the slaughter and mayhem. Harrison Lloyd (David Stratharin) is married to Sarah (Andie MacDonald) and they have two small children. He concludes that it's time for him to find another line of work. Taking pictures of flowers is not only safer, but also benefits the human race. Harrison, however, is asked to accept one more assignment. The year is 1991---and the location is the former Republics of Yugoslavia.

Sarah shortly thereafter is informed that Harrison is presumed dead. She refuses to allow her family to perform the Kaddish, for Sarah is convinced that her beloved husband still remains in the land of the living. The odds might not be favorable, but Sarah will not be deterred from looking for Harrison in the war zone. Adrien Brody portrays Kyle, a junior member of the profession who feels obligated to assist Sarah in her apparent hopeless quest. Sometimes wars are fought between the clearly good guys versus those representing the side of pure and unmitigated evil. Alas, this troubled region is being torn apart by brutal ethnic cleansing. The very concept of morality and mercy is alien to these monsters. Nihilism reigns supreme and no one regardless of age or gender is considered untouchable. Even adolescent girls run the risk of rape, and combatants casually put a bullet into the most innocuous of their fellow human being. The warring factions care little about distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. It is perceived far easier to simply murder everyone.

Director Elie Chouraqui has created a masterpiece. Harrison's Flowers deserves an Academy Award nomination for best picture. The cast is magnificent and the film is visually stunning. It is a love story about a married couple committed to each other and the values they hold dear. Some people have unfairly criticized Chouraqui for not being able to make sense of the Balkan's mess. In other words, they're presumably upset that Chouraqui does not claim to be God. Is there anybody, after all, able to explain the practical and existential meaning of this fairly recent apocalyptical nightmare? I wholeheartedly recommend that you see Harrison's Flowers.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, but somewhat unrealistic
Review: With the recent brutal murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, the motion picture Harrison's Flowers hits painfully close to home. Amidst the current abundance of war movies (Hart's War, We Were Soldiers), this film reminds us that soldiers aren't the only ones that go to war. It paints journalists as warriors with cameras instead of guns. They, too, often are casualties of war.

The mortality rate among journalists is high. The International Federation of Journalists reports a total of 91 journalists killed in 2001, and at least eight have been killed in Afghanistan.

This is the premise upon which Harrison's Flowers is based. The film is a love story set against the backdrop of the 1991 war in the former Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, the filmmakers fail to deliver on the premise.

The film opens with Pulitzer prize-winning Newsweek photojournalist Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn) returning home from an assignment in Africa. In the opening few minutes Harrison appears rough-housing with his two children, is captivated by a television news report from Africa, tends flowers in his greenhouse, and presents an award to colleague Yeager Pollack (Elias Koteas) at a Pulitzer awards ceremony.

Yet, Harrison is not content. He's dissatisfied with his distant relationship with his son Cesar (Scott Anton) and he tells his editor, Samuel Brubeck (Alun Armstrong), that he's giving it up. "I never used to get clammy hands, and I wasn't afraid of anything. All I can think about now is Sarah and the kids." At the request of Brubeck, Harrison agrees to stay on a while longer.

At the awards ceremony, a bitter, foul-mouthed, drug-using Kyle Morris (Adrien Brody) confronts Harrison in the men's room. Morris explains that his colleague, "a tiny little photographer in a tiny little country with a tiny little war" was recently killed overseas while "you are giving each other awards."

When a conflict breaks out in Yugoslavia, Brubeck asks Harrison to go for what is to be a one-week assignment, introducing the viewer to a war we never fully understood and that we would rather forget. The film taps into that when while watching the first footage from Yugoslavia, the newsroom staff misunderstands the conflict. "It's just an ethnic skirmish," Brubeck remarks.

Brubeck later informs Harrison's wife, Sarah (Andie MacDowell), that he has apparently been killed when a home he was in collapsed. "We were wrong," he admits. "It's not just skirmishes. It's a filthy war. We were all wrong."

Sarah, however, refuses to believe her husband is dead. "Something would have broken inside if he were dead," she tells her brother. Becoming self-absorbed, and ignoring her children, she sets up camp, living and sleeping in front of two television sets hoping for help from the footage. It is there, during a news report, that she thinks she sees Harrison among a group of refugees headed toward Vukovar.

Leaving the children in the care of her mother, she heads to the war-torn country, picking up a Croatian hitchhiker heading home to his wife and child on the way. Shortly after they cross the border, she receives a brutal introduction to war. Their car is shelled, the Croatian student is killed, and Sarah is nearly raped by a band of Serbian rebels. Here the focus of the story shifts to an action film, with Sarah saying little.

The film makes it virtually impossible to distinguish between one side or another in the conflict, suggesting there is little difference between the two. After being rescued by a TV crew, she is introduced to Morris. He tells her, "You can't stay in this country. No one knows what this country is...Serbian, Catholic, Croatian, Orthodox... there's no bad guys, there's no good guys. They'll shoot you first and think about it later. This is no place for the living." In doing so, the film attempts not to take sides. Yet, the gruesome atrocities which are apparent at their every turn makes everyone in the film seem like a "bad guy."

Sarah will not take "no" for an answer. This sets up a series of narrow escapes as Morris, Sarah, and Marc Stevenson (Brendan Gleeson) make their way toward Vukovar, where the fighting is fiercest. At one point with tanks rolling toward their car and shells flying, even the optimist Morris admits, "We're dead." In the next scene they're shown driving the car, with never any indication of how they made it out. Such scenes make the film seem both unrealistic and unbelievable.

In yet another unrealistic scene, the four don camouflage to hide from and outrun Serbian snipers. When they finally reach Vukovar, Pollack explains, "It wasn't fighting that was going on, but extermination." While everyone around them is being massacred, the journalists wave their cameras like passports, and endure one casualty as they make their way to the hospital.

The film is one of contrasts. On one hand we are treated to the atrocities of a civil war. Yet, amidst it all is a woman who will seemingly stop at nothing for her husband. Unfortunately, it's less than convincing and not really worth [the money] to see.

The film tries too quickly to establish a loving relationship between Harrison and Sarah. In the only way that Hollywood seems capable of portraying intimacy, Harrison and Sarah make love. However, in the absence of any real communication, the attempt is unsuccessful. In addition, the viewer fails to truly identify with any of the film's key characters. Lacking that, it is later difficult to become emotionally vested in Sarah's overriding passion in her search for her husband, or Morris' desire to take up her cause.

Had the film spent more time up front developing the characters and establishing a truly intimate (emotionally and intellectually, not just physically) relationship between Harrison and Sarah, the rest of the film might have been more believable.

Pervasive profanity distracts from the film's dialogue. It's as if the journalists, faced by the chaos of war, know how to do little else but swear. The film is definitely for mature viewers only.

Co-written by French director Elie Chouraqui and photojournalist Isabel Ellsen, the film accurately captures the realities and dangers of photojournalism.

The film also captures the chaos and the gruesome senselessness of war. Fortunately, unlike the Daniel Pearl story, this one has a happier ending.