Product Details

• Actors: Boris Aljinovic, Paul Austin, Dominik Bender, Susie Bick, Jorg Biesler
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, German, Japanese
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home E
• VHS Release Date: March 16, 1999
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304431775
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,514 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Hal Hartley's three-part film about desire and commitment has an interesting experimental quality: the first and second stories are essentially the same tale with the same dialogue, but with contrasting orientations. Part 1 is set in New York in 1993, with Bill (William Sage) standing in a phone booth, listening to a lover, Emily (Parker Posey), trying to talk him into making a marriage proposal before she accepts another. After they hang up, Bill is on the line with Margaret (Hannah Sullivan), making the same sort of entreaties Emily had made to him. Reality and fantasy start to merge as three homeless men begin advising Bill in a restroom about his love life, and Margaret's husband gets ready to shoot himself. Part 2 is set in Berlin in 1944, where the preceding story is recycled among a group of homosexual characters. Finally, the trilogy ends in 1995 Tokyo, where we watch a mime troupe distill Hartley's narrative template to its dramatic essence. The overall effect of Hartley's wandering eye for locale and placement is a compelling study of the mysteries of "story" itself, a formalist issue the writer-director has always dealt with in the most disarming, comic ways. There's less laughter in Flirt than in Hartley's previous movies (though that's not true of his subsequent work), but this is a more baldly self-referential piece than he has made before. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hal Hartley masterpiece, September 20, 2001

By 

Jeremy Heilman (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flirt [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Hal Hartley appears to be an acquired taste... I have only seen 3 of his films so far (this, the flat-out brilliant Trust, and the okay Henry Fool) but he's clearly one of the most underappreciated American directors working today. I think the delivery of his dialogue is what kills it for most people. It's very deliberate and generally not filled with an overkill of emotion. I find this approach allows me to listen to what the characters are actually saying (as opposed to just how they're saying it). That Hartley's one of the few screenwriters with something to actually say really seals the deal.
I don't want to suggest Flirt lacks emotion though. It manages to pack in more complex emotions that most more histrionic films. In one scene, a man threatens another with a gun, reconciles with him, embraces him, has a change of heart, and shoots him. A woman who witnesses this, hearing some music that begins to play, begins to dance, caught in the moment, slips to the ground, and gets up regaining her sense of reality. This sounds absurdist, and it plays that way in the film. Still, it manages to convey a great deal of human emotions in about a minute without a false note. Hartley is a master at achieving a desired effect.
Flirt is somewhat experimental in that it replays the same narrative with nearly the same dialogue in three different countries with three different casts. This never felt boring to me, as the intention of some of the lines and the overall outcome of the situation changes each time. What's interesting is that the plot of the episodes is that the character has 90 minutes to make up their mind about whether their relationship has a future. Not coincidentally, the film is 90 minutes long. Clearly Hartley is commenting on the use of art (screenwriting, film direction) to solve personal demons. One feels he is using this film to explore a personal dilemma for himself, a point that is driven home when Hartley himself shows up in the third episode as the possibly spurned lover.
It's interesting that such an apparent act of directorial vanity never feels like hubris. Hartley manages to make an extremely personal film that actually has something universal to say. He manages to be stylistically bold without being gaudy or excessive. He manages to make the same plot interesting three times. He manages to create a masterpiece in "Flirt".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tour de Force in three acts and no special effects, May 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Flirt [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I went to see this film at a cinema festival one thursday evening in 1997. I returned the next day, same theatre, same movie, same time. By the end of the second viewing I was still taken aback.

Flirt is filled with hazy tenderness. As in "Trust" or "Surviving Desire", Flirt is filled with Hartley's staple meaning-of-life questions, making the film a delicate three ring circus: NY, Berlin, Tokyo. The setting may change, but the questions are the same. Like most of Hartley's work, Flirt didn't get much mainstream attention. I find that rather adequate

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love Hal Hartley this is for you, April 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Flirt [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This film is built from a device Hal Hartley used in his early films: looped repeating conversations/actions. I have always been delighted by these moments- especially the clinic conversation in "Trust." Here we see the same storyline played out three times in three different locations by three different casts to varying conclusions. Several of the Hartley regulars are present which is always a plus and Hal himself makes an appearance. This is a lighter film than "Amateur", more of a throwback to his early work. If you loved "Simple Men" and "The Unbelievable Truth" this is the film for you.