Flowers

Flowers

Synopsis

"While I was staying in New York in the 60s during the rise of the hippie movement, I saw performances of body painting by the artist Kusama Yayoi in parks and other places and became interested in the performances. Many people had gathered around the performance and at the center she practiced her art. I filmed her performances and one day she informed me of an upcoming indoor performance. After shooting I made a film poem through several super-impositions of flowers, the symbol of the hippy movement giving them the name 'flower children', over the performance as I wasn't satisfied with merely documenting her piece. The performance, however, is not always in the foreground, but is woven like fabric among the superimposed flowers. These scenes are, taking the word quite literally, one of the most erotic ones among my films. Furthermore another female figure (Akiko Iimura) also emerges in soft focus. The film ends on a New York rooftop with a wind blown flowered dress suspended over the Empire State Building. Nearly 40 years later Tomomi Adachi has composed fascinating music for the film." – Takahiko Iimura