The Mediterranean Sea steals the show in this slow, contemplative art-house film from filmmaker Helena Wittmann.
Ida (Angeliki Papoulia) and her crew of five men live on a yacht, sailing the high seas and collecting coral samples and oceanic plant specimen along their travels. We surmise from their careful scientific collections, occasional conversations and close-ups of microorganisms that they might be marine biologists or climate activists, or perhaps simply ocean enthusiasts. We never really know. We don’t learn much about the characters, who are often silent in deference to the sounds of the ocean and their own individual tasks aboard the ship.
Over the course of the film, we learn a bit about each character’s role on the yacht, mainly through observation. Aside from navigation, cooking, and maintenance, they take time for more creative pursuits. Ida, the owner, often goes for dips in the sea, sometimes returning to the boat with coral or plant samples. One crew member records their biological finds in a large journal, pressing plants into the pages and writing notes. Another reads aloud passages written by a member of the French Foreign Legion, a secretive unit of the French army founded in the 19th century and which still exists today.
Ida and the crew become intrigued by the French Foreign Legion and decide to vaguely follow its traces, sailing across the Mediterranean via Corsica to Algeria, home of the historical headquarters of the Legion. It’s less a defined narrative quest and more a lucid source of fascination, but the tidbits we learn about the Legion are indeed interesting.
Although Ida lives in a predominantly male environment in the film, surrounded by her crew of men and investigating a secretive male legion, she and her crew live in total harmony. There’s a balance of power since she owns the boat and decides the navigation, and the crew members technically work for her. There’s never any hint of a power struggle or gendered dynamics as they live and work together on the boat in a loose, companionable symmetry. It seems as though they always have and always will be here together, moving in tandem.
Amid this fluid existence, Wittmann explores the blurred intersections of history, geography, and nature. In one sequence, a crew member out for a walk on land unknowingly finds himself near-surrounded by camouflaged soldiers who blend effortlessly into the wilderness. Another time, while Ida swims in the ocean, the camera sinks below the surface until it finds an old war plane lying on the ocean floor, now covered in plant life. Wittmann crafts these interesting, layered observations without needing to confine them to any particular interpretation.
Shot on 35mm film, Wittmann serves as director, cinematographer, screenwriter and editor of the film. Known for her debut feature, Drift (2017), which also featured the landscape of water in a prominent role, Wittmann proves again in Human Flowers of Flesh that she is a master behind the camera with a keen ability to capture the rich magic of the ocean.
The Mediterranean Sea is arguably the main character of the film, the sailboat a close second. Whether in the forefront or background, Wittmann engages the sea and the yacht in a sensory adventure for the viewer. She uses many close-ups of the ocean, faces, bodies, and objects, placing them against the sound and experience of being at sea. Unhurried minutes go by as the waves lap against Ida’s floating body, or the crew stare dreamily out at the horizon, or we look through a small round window below deck as we bob in time with the waves and the creaking of the wooden yacht. At one point the camera submerges into the water and our screen fills with blue, the colours shifting from light turquoise to navy as we sink deeper.
The cinematography alone makes the film worth watching on as big a screen as possible. That said, the film is certainly not for everyone. Those looking for a compelling narrative and steady pace should skip it; the film is very light in plot and character and moves with slow intent. However, those who enjoy a leisurely, reflective art-house film where visual aesthetics take precedence will connect with Wittmannn’s particular kind of magic and find themselves very much enchanted.
Human Flowers of Flesh premiered at this year’s Locarno Film Festival as part of the Concorso Internazionale (International Competition) section.