Miss Geraldine Flower remains something of a mystery from beginning to end of this extraordinary experimental biopic. Inspired by a case full of letters, photographs and — those were the days — telexes left behind by the late Miss Flower after her untimely death, the film is essentially a song cycle, performed by Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini and filmed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the directing duo behind the 2014 Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth.
Like that film, The Extraordinary Miss Flower — which had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival this weekend — is an exercise in channeling its subject rather than simply showing and telling.
And like that film, it is destined to find an eager cult audience for its psychedelic charms. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s no surprise.
Although her writing was sophisticated, and she worked periodically in the media (broadcast and print), Geraldine was mostly known to the film’s producer, her daughter Zoe Flower, who initiated the project.
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