Flower (2011) User Reviews

Lust, Sex and Pain

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 28 May 2013]

In Paris, the Chinese university student Hua (Corinne Yam) is dumped by her lover. Hua wanders on the streets and the French worker Mathieu (Tahar Rahim) accidentally hits her face with the pipes that he is carrying on his shoulder. Mathieu apologizes to Hua and invites her to have dinner with him. When they leave the restaurant, Mathieu rapes her and then he accompanies Hua home.

Hua is a promiscuous and submissive woman and she has one night stand with Mathieu. The unlike couple falls begin a relationship based on a strong sexual desire. The insecure Mathieu decides to test Hua's fidelity and his friend Giovanni (Jalil Lespert) also rapes her. Their troubled relationship ends when Hua finds secrets about Mathieu's life and decides to return to China.

"Love and Bruises" is the first movie of Ye Lou that I watch and I found it only reasonable and pointless. The title is incorrect since the plot shows sexual desire but never love. The plot shows differences of culture between a Chinese woman and a French man; difference of intellect between a university student and a worker; difference of behavior between a submissive woman and a brutal man. Hua is masochist and Mathieu is sadistic and their relationship lasts for a period basically supported by their sexual preferences. Corinne Yam stays a great part of the running time naked or having sex. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil) : "Amor e Dor" ("Love and Pain")

Feel the bruises, not the love

[samuelding85 · 5/10 · 5 May 2012]

Love and Bruises is Chinese controversial director Lou Ye's latest production. Based on the adaptation of Liu Jie Falin's 'Bitch', Lou tells a love story that is not covered in a bed of roses, but lust and bruises. Newcomer Corrine Yam and Tahir Rahim (A Prophet) takes the leading role of the lover in question, who suffers more bruises in the relationship than feels the love.

Yam plays Hua, a Beijing student who met an accident along the road. Mathieu (Rahim), the worker who accidentally bumps on Hua, apologizes to Hua by taking her to a dinner. The dinner ends up a date rape, where Hua was raped by Mathieu. Feeling a sense of guilt, Mathieu takes Hua home, which ends up both of them falling into a love relationship that is filled with lust. Hua is the victim in the relationship, where she was abused by Mathieu, both physically and emotionally. When Hua decided to end the relationship, Mathieu realizes that Hua is the love of his life, which he will do anything to salvage the broken relationship, even if it means divorcing his current wife so as to marry Hua.

Once again, Lou Ye explores the painful relationship that leads to no happy ending, which can be seen in Summer Palace (2006) and Spring Fever (2009). Sex is the main theme of Love and Bruises, which sees how a couple getting together just to satisfy their sexual needs than emotional needs. The plot for Love and Bruises is similar to Summer Palace, except it is summarized in the backdrop of modern day Paris and Beijing with a twist in the plot.

While Love and Bruises explores the love and sexual relationship between a couple from different countries and different races, the plots seems to be aimless, which audience can be left lost in translation. The main focus of the film seems to focus more on the sexual relationship between Hua and Mathieu, rather than what the couple did to salvage the damaged relationship. In many areas, audience are left with blanks to fill in, rather than be told what happened in between. The movie also lacks a clear explanation on how what makes Hua taking the submissive role in the relationship, and Mathieu the more aggressive one.

To sum up, Love and Bruises leaves the audience with some bruises with a bitter aftertaste, which it may explains why love relationship may not always be a bed of rose. However, the wounds will heal with more love being showered in the relationship. Just like the movie, more love can be shown so that audience will not feel much bruises.

Nix lust, say issues with self esteem

[MagyarRose · 7 December 2013]

It was painful to watch through this but I got a good idea of what the writer and director were getting at. It is a fascinating subject. While studying the issue of class in relationships, the main theme as I saw it was about dis-empowerment. Spoilers to follow.

Psychologists have demonstrated that rape is about power. Not sex. A man feeling powerless dominating another. It is not about lust. The working class, dark skinned protagonist does not have much in his life in French society besides brandishing machismo-ism Similarly, promiscuity, in particular in the female, comes from a deep seated feeling of not being loved, and low self esteem. At first glance this would not seem to apply to the female protagonist. But we don't know anything about her family life, where all this is rooted.

She does abandon a lackluster man who is eager to please her at the Beijing university, with whom she appearers to have been living, and runs after a French man to Paris. A man who had been in Beijing she'd met at the university and had what sounds like a brief consuming relationship.

Later, being raped and then really repeatedly raped countless times by her machismo, working class pursuer,( for no one with any knowledge of female sexuality would say she is getting satisfaction from that kind of violent banging) is a clear sign of her depression. It is the cuddling afterward that gives her true satisfaction. It is not about sex, it is about a need to feel close, and some deep seated insecurity.

Running parallel to this is the issue of how we don't want what is easy, run after what seems unattainable,and reject those who plead with us obsequiously. It made me wince to see the ex lovers being rejected in such cruel ways dramatized enough times for emphasis in the script.

It's easy to say Flower should just return to the cool job she has in Beijing that many would die for. Hopefully she will. Hopefully she can find her inner power and move forward knowing that she will find in the course of her interesting career an intellectual, strong but gentle man she needs for a good partnership. She needs to read "The Rules" and "You Lost Him at Hello" in the meanwhile. lol

As for the male protagonist left behind in a working class life with no clear options to rise above, one can only hope for some chance, some change in him, to be a better man, some counseling for abusing women, return to his wife and baby. At least he is shown to have a warm family hearth to come home to, but an environment non the less which has been responsible for him feeling such a need to show power by being abusive to women.

It might all seem like sex, but at heart it's all just an acting out of a desperation for love and self esteem, and feeling powerless to achieve one's dreams hampered by social divisions.

Clear what happens

[jarvat-1 · 10/10 · 30 December 2020]

Many reviews complaining about alleged open endings or unclear events.

It's all pretty clear.

The relationship between Hua and MAthieu (which starts with a one night rape and not a one night stand despite what other reviews say) is bases solely on aggressive sex.

Mathieu is an over jealous and possessive psycho, Hua the submissive finds out that Mathieu's hides many facts of his life (like he was already married) and decides to quit and return to Beijing to her actual boyfriend (who she cheated on at least twice).

Then Hua decides to return. Meets Mat again, they have sex in a hotel, suddenly Mat's pecker starts malfunctioning...no sex...no more relationship. The end.

More about Mat. He leaves the lady from Djibouti he was married to for Hua but then in a train finds another (hot) lady and tries to start an affair with her (she asks him if he's in a relationship and he denies). At the end he's not working in construction/maintenance anymore. Hua asks him what he does for a living at the end of the movie and he says he can't tell....I don't think there is a legal income tax at his new job.