'Day of the Flowers' film review

‘Day of the Flowers’ review – 03.9.16

          

Respecting Cuba on the big screen demands that the country’s contrasts are addressed without glorification, and Eirene Houston’s screenplay provides the necessary balance of locational beauty and unpatronising social commentary in her 2012 film ‘Day of the Flowers.’ When their father dies suddenly, contrasting sisters Rosa and Ailie fly to Cuba – a place close to the heart of the family – to scatter his ashes. On their first night in the country, they are taken to a popular dancing club: a money-making outlet dealing in crude approximations of Cuban authenticity. Ailie loves the spectacle; Rosa is uneasy. ‘They have to give tourists what think they’ll like,’ she is solemnly informed by a fellow traveller. 

       Some may argue that in turn, giving cinema-goers ‘what they like’ would involve a multiplication of sassy, humid dance scenes on one hand, and less focus on Rosa’s unpleasant experience with a poverty-stricken Cuban family on the other. However, the sequence depicting Rosa’s trauma is powerful and valid: not only does it frankly acknowledge conditions which for many are a reality; in addition, the results on Rosa’s character are complex and pivotal. For the first time, the viewer is shown the value she holds for her own life: a value previously eclipsed by her admirable (yet occasionally misguided) compassion for others. As she is gently reminded later in the film, one cannot ‘fight for the revolution every day.’ Before her ordeal, she had begun to lose vital strands of her own self in the attempt.

This a film with a deep reverence for Cuba; its vitality, strength and contradictions… yet with a simultaneous commitment to the parallel nuances of its human characters. Carlos Acosta’s Tomas is serene yet deeply powerful, and one cannot miss the luxurious twinkle during his first meeting with Rosa. He understands that she must make peace with herself before she can achieve her goal of facilitating peace for others, and as such, there is a complexity to their rapport which elevates it beyond that of a generic, plot-driven romance. An unfaltering understanding of the blossom and thorns of another’s character is an essential ingredient of love as it should be. The film understands this, and watching the pair bristle towards their combined fate is genuinely cathartic; a dynamic that is mirrored and complimented by the presentation of the sisters’ own relationship.

Eva Birthistle’s Rosa is sincere and relatable in her humanity, while Manuel de Blas and Charity Wakefield provide what is – for me – the most moving moment of the piece, in a single exchange of glance. This is a thoughtful, sumptuous piece of cinema which should not be allowed to fall off the map through lack of deserved exposure. 

By Rosa Barbour

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