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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Hal Hartley masterpiece, September 21, 2001
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".
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
85 minutes I'll never get back, June 28, 1999
By A Customer
Let me first state that I am not a follower of Hal Hartley, so I do not base my review on any other part of his entire body of work. But as a film student, I must say that this movie bordered on excrutiating to watch. First of all, do not watch this film if you are expecting a performance from Parker Posey (as I was). Her's is the first face you see in the film, and after all of her 90 seconds, the rest of the movie is a major disappointment. Even her lines seemed forced and unbelievable, and as they are repeated twice over by international casts, they only become more boring and painful to listen to. The gimmick of this film is to repeat the same exact situations in three different locales with three different casts. Perhaps with a better script or some acting of any quality, I could have been sold, but as it stands this moves was a bad idea. If you're looking for a bright spot in this movie, the honors would have to go to Dwight Ewell, who played Dwight in the Berlin portion of the film. His was the only performance of note in this utter waste of time and celluloid. If you do feel compelled to view this disaster, I'll spare you the displeasure. The lines in each locale are repeated verbatim (with the excpetion of the Tokyo episode, where the lines are broken up and even deleted. This was the point at which whatever semblance of form this movie had was cast asunder). If you have absolutely nothing else to do for 85 minutes, then consider this film, but do so at the risk of hating it as much as I came to.
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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
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
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