我的秘密之花

莫名有趣的开头，从一段无关的戏剧场景开始，我还以为那个哭泣的母亲真的是女主呢，结果导演直接来个大反转。镜头下这些女性角色都极为鲜活，真没有想到竟然是位男导演。

女主既是位自信的才女作家，又是一个痴情卑微的妻子，才女陷入痴情总是让人感觉唏嘘。女主和丈夫曾经也有着甜蜜，可是如今只剩下一地鸡毛，话不投机。虽然闺蜜和丈夫出轨很狗血，但是很明显闺蜜对女主的感情很特别，简直快称得上是拉拉了，所以也会为了女主放弃那个男人。

女主的家族很有意思，成员简直称得上两种极端，一种像自己和姨妈姥姥一样敏感忧郁，另一种像妈妈和妹妹一样世俗泼辣，妈妈作的田园诗就像打油诗一样，可是身上那种洋溢的勃勃生机，着实让人觉得亲切，区别就像张爱玲和斯嘉丽，前者生命的底色是悲凉，后者生命的底色是柔韧。女主幸运的是有世俗派家人绊住自己求死的脚步，还有一个忠犬男编辑，此时他的女神正是孤寂脆弱的时候，自然是要发起温柔又热烈的攻势。谁都知道这是最合适的一对儿，有共同的志趣爱好，随时能够聊得来。

之前看过的有关女作家的影视也不少，关于她们的爱情八卦往往在她们的生命中占据了重要的一席之地。这爱情对她们来说或是春药或是毒药，或者会滋养她们的才华，或是戕害她们的生命。如人饮水，冷暖自知，她们真正的心路历程也只有她们自己清楚。

你借着参加维和部队的机会，逃离这间屋子发生的战争，我才是这场战争唯一的受害者。（妻子对丈夫说的话） 正因为他是我朋友的丈夫，即使我是心理医生，我也不能让他成为我的病人。但他还是时不时来找我，我们的友谊成了他的安慰。有一次，我们就都发现了对彼此的感情。（女主朋友是心理医生，告诉女主她丈夫跟自己有过关系，现在已经没有了，他们一直想告诉她，但她只顾自己说，不让别人说） 电影前半段狗血矫揉造作，身为女作家，每天都穿着丈夫不同时候送的东西，一双两年前买的靴子紧的脱不下来都可以讲上十分钟，但视听语言确实很奇妙，与丈夫重逢在门口热吻那段镜子好像万花筒，还有浴室那段左右呈现的镜中像和本体像对丈夫的包围，还有色块的充斥强烈运用，对于一部描写女性在两性关系与自我排解中都是有辅助的效果的。愤怒地砸珠盘，那些蓝色的珠子在地板上交织滚动着的画面不停在我脑中反复播放，希望这一刻的痛苦就是永恒，永远沉痛下去不要醒来，女主不要想起没有丈夫的日子。她用镇静剂和酒精麻醉自己，逃避自己，用放纵去找另外的暂时愉悦去忘掉脆弱与怜悯。在母亲神经质般的催促下她也不想留在马德里这伤心之地，也不想想好友与丈夫的风流还有自己的失足，她跟随母亲回到拉曼查，母亲也告诉了她失去丈夫的女人都会有短暂的痛苦，但家乡永远是每个人的归属与再次出发的地方。她再次回到马德里，那段让她痛苦的日子也让她成长，两性关系只是关系的一种，可以另寻新爱，也可以找回自己，要接受没有丈夫和酒精的日子，更何况那时无心插柳还帮助了自己的仆人促成了一段精彩的舞蹈表演，生活意外，有苦有乐，重要的是你还在其中，还能继续书写生活的章节。

As a successful romantic novelist, Leo Macías (Paredes) lives on an easy street of Madrid, but middle-age crisis starts kicking in, the relationship with her husband Paco (Arias), a military officer who goes out of his way to be stationed in foreign countries (a typical cop-out move of the guilty part), is on the rocks, which significantly cripples her output of cloying love stories, and under contractual obligation and a nom-de-plume clause which gives her the freedom of anonymity, her high-flying career might take a sea change when she seeks to publish her latest anti-romantic works through a newspaper editor Angel (Echanove), who begins to take a shine for her.

THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET, Almodóvar’s 11th feature, might as well echo his own creativity struggle at that mid-point in his life, between churning out familiar stories that promise stability or breaking out from his comfort zone to map out new territory, an artist’s perpetual dilemma, that is.

Leo’s latent desire to shucking off her status quo and persistent loneliness is comically symbolized by a pair of shoes that Paco bought for her years ago that now becomes too tight for her to take it off, and cannot reach her maid Blanca (flamenco dancer Vargas, who will not exeunt without a fiery rendition), she has to cross the city to ask her best friend Betty (Elias) for help. Tellingly, female friendship is never simply a friend-or-foe dichotomy in Almodóvar’s understanding, here it is complicated by secrets, conflicted by feelings but ultimately benevolent, and men, on the other hand, are less so, Paco’s egotistic ultimatum prompts Leo to suicidal actions, Angel’s banal affection looks more like a stopgap than a soul-mate for her, and Blanca’s son Antonio (Cortés), is stripped down to a dunderhead with an improbable sense of naiveté, to whom Leo symbolically grants a gratitude than taking advantage of his corporeal gesture.

Thankfully, the school of hard knocks is graced by Marisa Paredes’ commandingly doleful star turn in the center, to incarnate a woman who is aspiring to burn the bridge and plow on over a dead-end marriage with a renewed direction of life, and the most ebullient parts are those with her mother and sister (Lampreave and de Palma respectively), when motormouth meets loudmouth, both are extraordinarily funny as the bickering duo, plus we must give the mother the credit for doling out her cracker-barrel philosophies and Lampreave is particularly swell in delivering her lines with a delicious cadence.

At any rate, THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET is Almodóvar’s more conventional and sympathetic practice of his slant on female emotional provenance, it might stem from love (even a lopsided one), family (even it is affixed with constant squabbling) or friendship (even if contains betrayal), but most of all, there is a form of vitality as immanent as a woman’s tears, vulnerable it seems, but the operative word here is “indissoluble”.

referential entries: Almodóvar’s JULIETA (2016, 7.0/10), WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? (1984, 7.0/10).