Fleurs du mal (2010)

Directed by: David Dusa | 100 minutes | drama | Actors: Rachid Youcef, Alice Belaidic

“Les fleurs du mal”, the flowers of evil, is the title of Charles Baudelaire’s best-known collection of poetry, which he wrote between 1843 and 1857. The majority of the one hundred and twenty-six poems belong to the cycle “Spleen et idéal” – they balance between a paralyzing melancholy on the one hand and the pursuit of a perfect world without obligations on the other. Baudelaire’s collection plays a central role in David Dusa’s experimental film ‘Fleurs du Mal’ (2011). The two protagonists each represent one of the two entities that are so prominent in Baudelaire’s work. On the other hand, Dusa’s film is very contemporary, because in addition to Baudelaire’s classical literature, ultramodern means of communication such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are also central. Much more prominent than the poetry collection “Les fleurs du mal” even.

Gecko (Rachid Youcef) works as a bellhop in a hotel in Paris. To prevent his job from putting him to sleep, he engages in ‘parkour’, a dynamic and acrobatic way of avoiding obstacles in the street. In addition, he is a fanatic breakdancer; he puts his dances on YouTube. Gecko lives in a secluded apartment, along a busy highway. He looks lonely, but doesn’t feel that way. Especially not when he meets Anahita (Alice Belaïdi), an Iranian student who was sent to Paris by her parents because they don’t want her to be in danger. The story is set at the time of the student uprisings in Tehran, following the 2009 presidential elections. Anahita also makes frequent use of the internet, initially to keep abreast of the ups and downs of her friends who have stayed behind. in Tehran and have become actively involved in the uprisings.

Gecko offers himself as a personal guide; he would like to get to know Anahita better and show more of Paris. He also wants her to feel all the freedoms she has here; she can do whatever she wants here. Gecko’s attention is a welcome distraction for Anahita and the two fall in love. However, the home front doesn’t let her go and the urge to check Twitter or Facebook is increasingly becoming an obsession. She feels guilty for having fun in Paris while her friends fight an increasingly bloody battle. She also feels that she has run away from her responsibilities. Gecko, trying to convince his newfound girlfriend that she should live in the here and now, tries to understand her frustrations, but Anahita’s fickleness and doubts don’t make the fledgling romance any easier. Especially not if she always has an update from the home front within reach thanks to her smartphone.

Director and writer David Dusa deliberately chose to elaborate on the budding love between Gecko and Anahita with YouTube news clips of the uprising as it actually happened. In this way you, as a viewer, become more closely involved in Anahita’s way of life and thinking. Her communication via Twitter (‘What’s New?’, followed by a personal call) is shared via the screen. It makes the film dynamic, but also messy. This also applies to the YouTube fragments, which are often of a mediocre quality. Dusa is clearly not concerned with the aesthetic, but with the emotional effect (although Gecko’s spectacularly filmed parkours clips are a feast for the eyes) of his film. He shows how the internet and its many possibilities have made the world smaller, but also how someone can become completely captivated by it and completely forget the real world around him. This is where Baudelaire comes in; the French poet’s poems bring Gecko and Anahita closer together, whereas modern means of communication drive them further apart.

‘Fleurs du mal’ is a daring project by David Dusa, which still has a few minor flaws in the elaboration, but in theory manages to strike the right chord. Thanks to a pinch of Baudelaire and a good splash of social media, he created an endearing portrait of two young people whose budding love seems doomed because they do not share the same philosophy of life.