Pedro Almodovar is one of the greatest living film directors, the rightful heir to Hitchcock’s throne with his mix of psychosexual driven dramas and an innovative storyteller who delivers uniquely crafted narratives. When Hulu notified me that his films were going to expire and be removed on June 20, 2017, I decided to watch all his films, including the ones that I already saw. This review is the eighth in a summer series that reflect on his films and contains spoilers.
The Flower of My Secret is available on DVD at Netflix and Amazon Video, but I got it through my local library. I have only seen the movie once after both viewings of All About My Mother, but before Volver. When I did watch The Flower of My Secret, I was conscious of its influence on All About My Mother, but not Volver. Almodovar films are simultaneously feature films and secret previews for upcoming releases.
The Flower of My Secret is about an author at a crossroads in her marriage and career. The dominant question of the film is which road or identity will she choose. The film is aware of dramatic important events swirling throughout Spain (strikes by doctors) and Europe (the Bosnian war), but it is simply a melodramatic backdrop to the author’s life. Almodovar agrees with the author that her life and feelings should be as much of a priority to those that love her as current events. In a sense, this film is the anti-Casablanca. If Almodovar made Casablanca, Rick and Ilsa would stay together because their relationship is as important as any war. Charity begins at home, and grand action is only seen as a cowardly excuse to flee daily life and truth.
Like most Almodovar films, The Flower of My Secret immediately challenges the viewer to decide if the events unfolding on screen are real or not. Unsurprisingly it is not real, but a performance which is part of a training for doctors who are trying to get inconsolable relatives of brain dead patients to donate organs. This scene later introduces us to an important supporting character, whose relationship to the other characters will be revealed, and the idea of false hope being worse than simply delivering devastating news in matters of life and death, which in an Almodovar film usually means a relationship, so a person can move forward. We are introduced to other characters by using the logic of a phone call. As the author tries to reach people, before we know that is what she is trying to do, we see what they are doing when they miss her call. Communication difficulties are emblematic in Almodovar films.
The author’s husband and friend view the author as a mad woman and are constantly telling her to calm down, which really irritated me. It is rare for me to predict what is going to happen in an Almodovar film, but The Flower of My Secret was predictable because her reaction seemed rationale considering her marriage was in crisis so I immediately suspected the affair. Visually when Almodovar introduces us to the author, it is reminiscent of how we are introduced to Pepa in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown so even though the author is unaware of what movie she is in, the books and journal by the bed signal that she is playing the dumped woman. Unlike Pepa, the friend and husband are gas lighting her into believing that she is a madwoman, which creates a creative and psychological fracture in her identity.
Unlike most of Almodovar films, there are few controversial elements or truly unsympathetic characters depicted sympathetically. The least sympathetic character in The Flower of My Secret is probably the husband because of how he denigrates the author’s attempts to please him instead of simply saying that he does not love her anymore. If you ever want me to hate a character, have the character throw out food intentionally or without solicitation for criticism from the preparer or arranger, purposely find fault with the dish to the person who prepared it. He is a weak man in strong man drag, a soldier’s uniform.
The entire sequence between him and the author is shot beautifully and does not even need dialogue. When they first meet and kiss, it is reflected and fractured by the mirror, which knows the truth before the author does. The choice to initially shoot from the shower wall’s perspective shows his desperation to get away from her. Since Psycho, there was never such a devastating shower scene as she obliviously and eagerly waits for him to emerge from the shower. Then during the utterly awkward moment when he gets out of the shower, and she towels him off, Almodovar chooses to use the camera movement to follow her actions and further alienates them since we don’t see his face, but how tense his body is. It is a simultaneously highly sexual and infantilizing move that reflects how disconnected they are. He is repulsed, and she is attracted. She is no longer a wife, but an inappropriate mother.
The Flower of My Secret has many actual mothers: the housekeeper/flamenco dancer, the romance novel editor, the fictional mother from the skit and the author’s mother. The only one that comes closest to the bathroom scene in terms of viewer discomfort is when the housekeeper dances passionately with her son during her performance. I know that ballroom dancers often dance with family members, but I’m an American, and it was a little jarring for me. Later on, the author hits on the housekeeper’s son, but does not really push the issue. The author interacts with a drug addict on the street and pays him to help her take off her boots, something her absent husband would ordinarily do. She later discovers that the drug addict is the son of her romance novel editor. In each case, the sons know more than the author during their interaction even though she seems like the one with more power: position, money and sexual dominance. The author keeps casting herself as inappropriate, vaguely sexually predatory mother, but constantly stops herself from following through on her desires, which indicates that even though her husband may be cruel, there is something fundamentally wrong with their relationship. She may be a mad woman, but not for the reasons that her husband and friend think. She is not actually in the relationship, but a fantasy or a memory that alienates her from actually engaging with another person or seeing reality. She keeps looking for husband substitutes, including from her husband. She is not making a connection.
Alcohol and prescription drug use are depicted negatively for the majority of The Flower of My Secret. The author uses them to blind herself to the truth and self-medicate herself from the pain of her dying relationship. When taken under a doctor figure’s supervision, it is equated with celebration. There is a scene where the author sees Angel, her newspaper editor and an admirer, in a crowd of striking doctors and runs into his arms. Even though he is not a doctor, he acts as a doctor figure to her. The film ends with them sharing a drink. If alcohol and drugs are used to hide the truth to his or her story, then Almodovar disapproves, but as a way to celebrate a transition to a new and improved life or a way to facilitate connection with another person, he condones it.
The Flower of My Secret’s tension seeks to resolve the identity crisis for its characters and help them become who they are supposed to be. The author has two personas: romance author and critic, but she can no longer be both. Angel also has two personas: editor at a major newspaper and romance novelist. The housekeeper is also secretly a renowned Flamenco dancer. Her son, who is also a flamenco dancer, is a dance troupe producer and thief. The first friend is also the author’s husband’s mistress. By the end of the film, one of these personas wins and the character no longer experiences distress.
The Flower of My Secret explores the idea of who owns stories. The opening credits feature Flamenco music over a script and hints at the film’s trajectory. Like Bad Education, the author is inspired by newspaper stories. Angel, the editor at El Pais, goes one step further and gives his novel to the author’s romance novel editor using her pseudonym. The housekeeper’s son steals one of the author’s stories to fund his dancing troupe’s performance. None of this is seen as deception because it furthers the desired creative destiny for every character. They get to keep their respectability, fund their creative endeavors and fulfill their deepest desires. Most importantly, as creators, they are honest with each other. In a sense, they are one grand macrocosm of creation. This development continues Almodovar’s theme of the turbulent internal life of an artist and the artist as priest to other characters who need to confess their morally questionable acts in order to get absolution.
The Flower of My Secret also resolves the author’s identity crisis when she returns to her first relationship with her mother, played by Chus Lampreave, and her first home, her mother’s village. During her suicide attempt, complete with a Red Cross medicine cabinet, she changes her mind when she hears her mother’s voice on the answering machine. Indeed my favorite moments in the film were between Lampreave and Rossy de Palma, who plays the author’s sister. Almodovar must have wanted to explore this dynamic more because he finally revisits it in Volver, but in a more loving way. As a grown woman who has traded places with her mother and now cares for her, Almodovar really captures the bickering love dynamic. The movie is worth watching for them alone. They live together in the city.
The mother always wants to go home, and even though she obviously annoys the sister, the sister does not want her to go anywhere. The mother’s desire to go home seems unlikely to be fulfilled until the author abruptly decides to do so. There are traces of this storyline in What Have I Done to Deserve This, which is an earlier Almodovar film, but we never see what returning home looks like. We do see it in The Flower of My Secret. The author connects with the women in the village and takes notes while they sing songs and knit. It is a very primal idea of returning home to rediscover yourself, your origin story, what made you love stories in the first place. When she returns to the city, she is able to connect again and is free to write what she wants.
The Flower of My Secret is not one of Almodovar’s best films. It feels a bit too much like a soap opera and can be overly dramatic as people throw things to the ground or wear sunglasses while being driven around like Miss Daisy, but like all his films, it is another masterpiece that you should check out if you are a fan. There are sexual situations and nudity, but it is fairly tame for an Almodovar film. There are no gay or trans characters although I kept thinking that Angel was actually gay and wondered why he was pretending that his admiration for the author was more than that, but I have been wrong before.