La flor (Argentina, 2018) dir. Mariano Llinás
A film in six episodes, connected by the same four actresses, full of various subplots that play with narrative and different cinematic genres , everything structured in an unusual way.
La Flor is broken into six separate episodes, connected only by an on-screen appearance by Llinás explaining the film's structure. The first four episodes have the beginning of a story but finish in medias res. The fifth episode is the only one to proceed from start to end, and the last episode has just the conclusion of a story.
The first episode is shot as a B movie, where a group of researchers encounter a mummy and its supernatural curse. The second episode has two parallel plots. One follows a couple that has broken up as they reunite to record a song together, and the other is a mystery about a secret society formulating a potion for eternal life using a supposedly extinct scorpion. The third episode is about a group of spies, with extended flashbacks describing each of their backstories.
The fourth episode uses an experimental metanarrative in which the four lead actresses play actresses who turn against their director and his elaborate narrative structure. After the director disappears, an investigator develops a theory about the actresses after reading a story about Casanova. The fifth episode is a black-and-white, largely silent remake of Jean Renoir's Partie de campagne. The sixth episode is told through the diary of an Englishwoman living in the Americas during the nineteenth century. She and three other women leave the desert after being held captive many years.
