“The Man Who Loved Flowers” by Andrew Newman. A.K.A “A musical Dollar Baby”
A musical short movie adapted from one of Stephen King’s short storys? Count me in. I confess that the first time I had the chance to watch this short movie I did not pay too much attention to it. I was in my car with my kid and the movie was on my cell phone during the second edition of the on-line film fest Stephen King Rules. My daughter was being “difficult” at that time, so I did not stop to pay the due attention to this short movie. What a rookie mistake, I should have been a bad parent for 5 minutes, it would have been worth it hahahahaha.
Last year, at the third edition of my Dollar Baby film fest I had as theme different genres. And then I remembered this movie, remembered that there is a musical Dollar Baby and that it was a must have movie considering last year’s theme, so I needed to watch it. Once I did, I just fell in love with the movie.
It is one of the best versions of this short story, the coolest one at least. The fact is that the idea of musical.Dollar Baby is already a good thing, it is something that makes this an unique Dollar Baby. But the fact that it is a good musical by itself is even better. Aaaand, what amazes me the most is the fact that it is a student movie made in 1996!!!!! It only achieved Dollar Baby status in 2011.
The cinematography of this short movie is one of the best things in it. At first it looks like a music video and if you are a Van Morrison fan you would believe that this is an official music video for “Brown Eyed girl“, at least until the actor starts to sing. But if there is one that differentiates this movie from music videos it is its cinematography, because it is so beautiful and well planned, it is cinema, not MTV! The way they filmed, the longshots doing exactly the opposite of music videos used to do in the 90s, man…
Themnit also has the actors and their choreography, which shows us how talented young filmmakers can be. A low budget student short movie does in five minutes what a french movie with 13 oscar nominations doesn’t: it brings a true and fun musical without offending anyone. (Yeah, we from Brazil hated that movie).
There are just a few dialogues in this short movie, but it is possible to analyze how good the main actor is even without dramatic scenes: at first he looks like just a goofy guy in love, a guy dancing and singing in the middle of the street, but once the music stops for a while and he starts to talk with the flower vendor,man, Shamus Mulholland shows how good he is. At first he is just kind and polite to the vendor (a fun fact, the flower vendor is Andrew Newman, the director) and although the vendor keeps being rude to the customer, the goofy guy is still polite. But eventually the main character loses his temper, not because of the vendor’ rude way, but because he asked 2 times to buy some flowers but the vendor couldn’t hear him. Now, pay attention: I said the vendor could not hear what the guys were asking, I did not say that he did it on purpose. And that is important because we, the audience, also have some difficulty hearing what he is saying. Why? At the first two times he asks for the flowers, a feminine scream overlays his lines. And that is how Newman shows us how brilliant he already was as a young filmmaker. That is when we start to think that something is wrong, maybe with that in love dude. He loses his temper and asks firmly, but only to become a goofy guy again at the next minute. Only at the end, in a great scene that reminded me of Stanley Kubrick at “A Clockwork Orange”, we can see a different side of Shamus’s character, because the song keeps playing and it is a catchy song, but what the character is doing (so happy doing) is something awful. And that smile on his face, man… Thank you Shamus, you are the best actor that has ever played this role.
The music is something apart at this Dollar, of course. It is funny that the last time I wrote a review for a Dollar Baby based upon this same short story (“El hombre que amaba flores“, by Favio Gayoso) it also had music used in such an intelligent way. And now we are talking about a musical Dollar Baby that also uses famous music, but using the main actor singing this song instead of having the original version of it.
“Brown Eyed Girl” is an old song by Van Morrison, a nice song that keeps in your head once you hear it. I confess that until I started to work on the subtitles in Portuguese for this movie, I had never heard this song. But now that I do know the song, the original version and this version of the short movie, I am in love with the song. But, of course, I prefer the Dollar Baby version of it, because it is so cool. The song looks like it was written for this movie because it talks to the main character and his feelings in such a perfect way. Until I got to know that it was a famous old song, I really used to think that it was written for the movie, because what Andrew Newman did is a musical about a guy in love that buys flowers for a girl and goes to deliver them to her. And , well, “that” happens. But it is such a perfect way not only to use the song but to tell this story that we already know so many versions of it.
Another cool thing Newman did at this film that is so cool is his choice to let that noise of old vinyl records, you know? He uses this as language and I think that this choice of his aged so well, because it gives now a vintage look to the movie. That happens because the movie was shooted in 16mm, but the version that we can watch looks like a VHS, so those images combined with the vinyl record’s sound makes the short movie still a cool thing almost 30 years after it was made. Thank you Andrew, you gave a real gift to all Stephen King fans and also to those who enjoy musicals.
The Dollar Baby’s grade? We from SKSM give 5 fingers of the dead guy’s hand, all of them up in the air dancing to the sound of “Brown Eyed Girl”.
Hope you guys liked this review, see you next time
Leonardo Granado
