As part of its ongoing focus on artists’ cinema, Film Notes continues its commitment to publishing film scripts by artists with the full script of Éric Baudelaire’s A Flower in the Mouth (2022), written by Anne-Louise Trividic & Baudelaire.
A FLOWER IN THE MOUTH
Written by
Anne-Louise Trividic
Eric Baudelaire
Based on the play
"The Man with the Flower in his Mouth"
By Luigi Pirandello (1922) translated by Eric Bentley (1957)
Poulet-Malassis Films
1 – EXT. STORE FRONT (PARIS) – NIGHT
In the foreground of a large storefront window, the silhouette of a salesperson meticulously wrapping gifts in paper. The lighting in the shop shines bright on the ribbons and the paper. The salesperson gracefully folds corners and ties knots with a particular skill. Two customers, a couple,smile as the gifts are readied for them. It is a well calibrated routine.
In the background, through the shop window, a passerby looks inside from the sidewalk. The man intently observes the salesperson drawn in by the dexterity of the hands tying ribbons. His gaze moves on to the couple, slides upwards towards the shop’s signage to note what is being sold. His head moves back down, eyes stuck to the gestures and the packages.
CUT TO BLACK
2 – TITLE SEQUENCE
A FLOWER IN THE MOUTH
adapted from a play by Luigi Pirandello
3 – EXT. FLOWER FARM (SORIA, SPAIN) – DAY
A sprawling flower farm in Spain. Greenhouses stretch across the red earth of a wide valley.
Inside a greenhouse, two workers walk down an impressively long row of rose bushes, cutting roses and stacking them into crates. The industrial scale of the farm contrasts with the delicacy of the flowers.
4 – INT. FLOWER MARKET (ALSMEER, HOLLAND) – DAWN
Neon lights flicker on in a cavernous refrigerated building. A bell rings. The space seems infinite.
Countless metal carts line one side of the hangar. A man driving a trolley latches on to a row of connected carts and tows away several dozen in a loud din of aluminum and rubber wheels on concrete.
Long cardboard boxes are stacked on a conveyor belt. A man cuts the straps on each box with a blade and tosses the lids onto another conveyor belt that whisks them away. Inside each box are dozens of long stem pink roses compacted together by their long journey.
A woman with dark hair seizes a bunch of roses from the box, shakes them loose and hangs them onto a mechanized structure containing dozens of other flowers, slowly moving forward.
As the pink roses progress down the line their stems are trimmed by mechanized shears. The bunches are turned upside down and run through an automated mechanism that ruffles them, wraps them in cellophane and delivers them to another worker who groups them into beige plastic buckets half-filled with sugared-water. The buckets are stacked onto trolleys set on computer-controlled rail systems that allow the flowers to navigate across the building as they journey to the auction rooms.
The process is filmed in long tracking shots that document the rhythmic, hypnotic gestures of the workers in the plant. Each stage is filmed with the same persistence, focusing on the mechanical repetition, the human gestures and expressions, the ambient colors, the humming and clinging of the machinery and the mesmerizing scale of the entire operation. This observational sequence takes its time: the shots are durational and cinematic, a visual anthropology rooted in sensations rather than explanations.
At 6 a.m. the auctions begin. Flowers are sold in an auditorium facing a large clock indicating the price. Buyers bid on flowers as the prices drop towards zero. The auctioneer, in a pit at the bottom of the auditorium, sets the rapid pace in a highly codified language, rattling off numbers gently into a headset while his thumb, deformed by years of repeating the very same gesture, rhythmically hits a single key on a customized keyboard.
Meanwhile, hundreds, thousands of multicolored bouquets move through the cavernous refrigerated hangars in a computer-controlled mechanized process that evokes a 21st century version of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
Trolleys full of bouquets are towed behind electric chariots that criss-cross each other on their way to delivering sold bouquets to loading docks rented by distributors.
Workers unpack and repack the flowers into new crates and prepare to ship them back out to London, Lagos, Moscow, Dubai and other cities via Schiphol airport.
The flower ballet is at once mesmerizing, because flowers are beautiful, and terrifying, because the industrial scale of the site, its rhythm, its efficiency and its clamor amplify the ecological aberrations the trade embodies.
High above the warehouse floor, in an immense white laboratory room, thousands of orchid plants sit on shelves under bright artificial lights. Slowly moving across the room with a laptop computer, a lab technician carefully examines each orchid, removing the dead leaves and annotating the plants’ condition in a spreadsheet.
On a balcony nearby, a group of visitors are given a tour by an official guide, peaking into the orchid laboratory window.
CUT TO BLACK
5 – EXT. SIDEWALK (PARIS) – NIGHT
The man from the first scene — observing the salesperson wrapping gifts through the storefront — steps back and walks into the night.
Wandering through the city under cones of street lights, the man peers into other storefronts.
His attention is caught by the lit interior of a real estate agency where a broker talks with a couple filling out paperwork for an apartment purchase.
The man is in his early fifties, dressed in slacks, a blue shirt, an elegant sweater. He is handsome, his eyes are vivid, alert, his face is expressive and marked by a scar from forehead to cheek. His chin is covered by a graying beard.
Beginning with this scene, camera movements and image texture mark a transition into a different cinema regime following the extended documentary sequence at the flower market. We observe a character as he observes the world, but the camera stays close, focusing on the man, isolating him from the broader context of the city at night that remains abstract.
6 – EXT. SIDEWALK (PARIS) – NIGHT
The man walks inside a pizzeria and re-appears through a window at a table, reading a menu.
7 – EXT. SIDEWALK (PARIS) – NIGHT
Through the same window, a waiter puts chairs on tables and sweeps the floor. The man finishes his espresso, leaves change on the table and heads back into empty streets.
8 – EXT. TRAIN STATION CAFÉ – NIGHT
The man wanders by a deserted train station. It is late, the station is empty, all storefronts are dark and closed.
He takes a seat in the only spot of light in the dark street, the terrace of an all-night café near the station.
WAITER (HIS HEAD THROUGH THE DOOR)
The usual?
The Man nods. The waiter returns with a highball glass.
Another man (CUSTOMER) approaches and sits at a nearby table. The Man observes the newcomer who is caught in the agitation of his day. This is visible in the way he seems inhabited by a sequence of different emotions. He repositions various gift bags at his feet, piles them in precarious stacks, observes his surroundings, checks his cellphone in his pocket. He turns around to catch the waiter’s eye and check whether the café is still serving at this hour — a sign he isn’t a regular. The Man seems energized by the behavior of the Customer. The Customer gets up to order a drink at the bar and returns.
The Man watches every gesture, a slight grin on his face. He shifts his chair slightly to better observe the newcomer’s attitude.
The Man seems suddenly happy. But only for a handful of seconds, then the feeling dissolves, his expression changes.
The Customer checks once more the pockets in his pants, his shirt, his vest. Then he sits more comfortably on his chair, appeased, all is in order, he can relax.
The Man glances at the Customer who responds with a slight nod.
A spark appears in the Man’s eye, the satisfaction of a fisherman who has felt a hit on his line.
In the distance, a mandolin starts playing. The Customer smiles and looks up towards nearby windows to find where the sound comes from.
The Man doesn’t smile and doesn’t raise his head.
MAN
It’s that time.
The Customer doesn’t react.
MAN
The mandolin.
CUSTOMER
(He decides to reply) Ah. It’s pretty rare. You don’t hear that kind of instrument these days.
MAN
(Caught in his thoughts) ...You do, here, every night. Two months ago the mandolin played, tonight it plays some more. It will play on. (Sombre)
The Customer smiles for him.
CUSTOMER
...Are you a regular?
The Man assesses his surroundings, suddenly amused to have become a regular. He doesn’t answer.
MAN
You missed your train?
CUSTOMER
I did, like an idiot. But I decided not to make a big thing out of it. I’m this close to finding it funny. (Thoughtful)
The Man looks at him, a quick look that catches all the nuances. He seems to be measuring the extent of the Customer’s relief, or satisfaction.
CUSTOMER
You didn’t miss a train.
MAN
I did not.
CUSTOMER
I came down to the city to do some shopping. I was heading back east, and I don’t know why but I didn’t see the time go by. So now I have (he looks at his phone) five hours to kill. That’s totally manageable, isn’t it?
MAN
Would you be so kind to tell me a little more about how you managed to miss that train?
The Customer is taken aback, finding that the Man exceeds the conventions of a conversation between strangers.
He doesn’t answer, raising his shoulders.
MAN
A train to... Strasbourg.. Metz... (enumerating possibilities without real interest) Nancy...
The Customer turns his head, the Man evidently named his town. The Customer looks at the Man intently as the waiter brings his drink. A blue cordial. Mint blue. Or curaçao? The Man’s gaze plunges into the Customer’s drink, brightened by the café’s neon light. He looks down towards the stack of gift bags at the Customer’s feet. Special purchases, without a doubt.
MAN
A gift? A sudden urge? A trinket or an essential item? These days they put everything in that kind of bag, the kind that doesn’t let you guess what’s inside. Before --well, a little while ago --purchases had their individuality, didn’t they? You could guess. If you paid attention. These days, every purchase dissolves in that perfectly common sort of bag. Always the same proportions. Everywhere. (He looks more closely) And if nothing is written on it... I guess on yours the color of the cord is distinctive.
The Customer can’t help but look down towards the bags at his feet.
MAN
So, a gift, right?
Having taken a good look at the Man, the Customer decides he can engage.
CUSTOMER
A gift. Yes. For my partner. An unexpected present, in fact.
MAN
An unexpected present? Something. Small. Quite pretty, different, no doubt, a gift that will leave a mark, unanticipated. Spotted while walking down a street in a neighborhood where people like me, and perhaps you too, never go. A place that a man like yourself probably detests, but occasionally you have to go there, for work, to run an errand, and you are surprised because as you cross over, sometimes, you stop detesting what you see. For a second or two.
You stepped inside. Perhaps it was because of the lighting in the store, or its shape. A store like a hallway, if you spread your arms, you can touch both walls. That’s its particularity. A half-hour longer and you’d suffocate in there. But for the time it takes to make that a purchase, it’s the perfect place to buy that kind of object.
MAN
The salesman moves through the space as if nothing could hinder him. Ever. He smiled as if he’d seen you before, you’re a regular — if you weren’t already, you will be soon. One sheet of silk paper, another, a third. Slightly different hues. He took your card, and now he calls you by your name. You will be back.
The present itself, you’re not yet sure if it will please, but choosing it, pointing at it, running your fingers around the bag’s cord, that had a little effect on you. Made you confident.
Under the soft light of the lampshades, you could see the salesperson, it was a man, you could see his long eyelashes, quite surprisingly, with edges as if powdered by light. (He smiles)
The Customer looks at him, surprised, caught between two emotions — impatience and curiosity.
MAN
What about flowers?
CUSTOMER
What about them?
MAN
Do you ever offer any?
CUSTOMER
Rarely, actually.
MAN
Mmmmm... Me neither. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind. A single flower, for example. Just one. Yes. That can be pretty.
You see, today, a couple things stopped me in my tracks. I stopped and I watched. There isn’t a single day when I feel weary or bored. No, no... Everything is terribly worth it.
Take this place. At this hour, there usually aren’t many customers and I’m grateful that you are here tonight. I’m not saying this is a particular night, though. It’s tonight. (Pause)
MAN
Today, I saw a man. A man waiting at an intersection. He was tall and straight, and yet I saw his back stoop. That’s what made me slow down. He hadn’t been waiting there long enough to stoop. The wait couldn’t be the reason. Then he leaned against a sign pole, thinking. He was waiting for someone who — I thought — he had a problem with, or was going to have a problem with. He regretted that problem, but that’s the way it was, no way around it.
And then the other guy arrived. The first man’s face lit up a bit. He knew everything, he could see their problems, problems that had become an obstacle to a more serene relationship, the kind he’d have liked to have, the kind he really needed. And when the other fellow got there, it was like a resolution. The expression on his face said that. It wasn’t joy, or just the end of the waiting: it was “Yes, this is how it is, you’re here, and this is how it is.”
What I mean to say is this: sometimes there’s a wall, an obstacle, but someone’s face makes it sacred. Makes it true. You have to look at it. I think one man was the other man’s son. They had the same shadow under their eyes.
(Pointing at the waiter behind the counter) The waiter, over there, is the Monday waiter. The rest of the week there’s a tall and thin guy who’s gotten used to me. And me to him. I say “used to” because he doesn’t have the exact same attitude with me as he does with others. He only likes new customers, he’d like you. He would’ve come over with a touch of warmth and said: “What would make you happy?” A phrase his boss should have banished straight up because asking that is exposing yourself to all kinds of trouble, isn’t it? If someone said that to me, I’d answer: “Another life, another ailment.” (Pause)
MAN
I’d say that now. Seven months and 13 days ago I’d have said: “You can’t possibly give me something I don’t already have.” Yes, I’d have said that. (He laughs) But no details. I wouldn’t have given any details. Just, “Thanks, please go satisfy someone else.” Maybe happiness, to you, is that tiny blue glass. (Pointing at it)
In any case, he doesn’t say that to me. He sees me with a side glance, he knows that when I show up it’s past midnight, his shift lasts a few more hours but the toughest ones are behind him. The drunks are exhausted, or busy making scenes in more crowded joints, livelier places. So are the louts.
He waits on me then he stands right there, near your spot, and he looks. He looks at the night. (Pause)
There’s a time when you see a lot of people from here. The movements of their lives. There aren’t that many movements. It’s surprising.
A table, a bed. Some back and forth between the table and the bed. A look through the window in search of a sound. Some windows are always open, rain or shine. Others, you have to close them, pull the curtains. The other day, a couple was having an argument, she was sitting, prostrated on the bed. It was no longer possible for her to look at him, standing by the bed, watching the back of her neck. The odds that all would go to hell, that he or she would leave the apartment, were exactly the same as the odds that he or she would say they regretted. Maybe it was fatigue, indecision. In the end, they made love. It took a while. It happened the way it’s supposed to, in theory, she spread her legs, he laid onto her. (Thinking)
(Pointing up) It’s that window, there. If you are lucky, you’ll see them again, maybe.
MAN
They are precious, in their own way. Looking at them, I have a feeling I am re-understanding things, re-understanding how pain and grief settle in, how we come to believe there may be nothing else, how joy occurs, too, like a sudden sting. Bam, it opens up your eyes and pinches your heart.
So many things that are beyond my reach. Now.
Anyway, this waiter looks, but he doesn’t see. He thinks about what he’s been doing and what he’s going to do. He doesn’t see what these people are actually saying: living is work — trying, uncertain — accomplished with difficulty, without certainty of success. Seeing people live is seeing that they move ahead like the blind, aiming at places they can no longer inhabit, or places with exact proportions they do not know, turning towards that of which they know nothing. But here, right here, now, they are not.
They each sip their drink in silence.
CUSTOMER
Well, you seem to have quite a good time imagining all this stuff!
MAN (ANNOYED, AFTER THINKING A MOMENT)
Imagining? I’m not sure I know about that.
CUSTOMER
I can just see how much you—
MAN
Yeah. You see me. Right.
This thought seems to appease him. The other understands that speaking with precision, truly connecting, is not within his immediate reach. (Pause)
MAN
Tell me something. Have you been to the doctor’s lately? Not to pry...
CUSTOMER
Why do you ask?
MAN
I ask because I'd like to know if you ever saw a fine doctor's waiting room — full of patients waiting their turn?
CUSTOMER
Sure. I had to take my little girl there a month ago. (Adding, out of kindness) She has a nervous condition.
MAN
You don’t need to tell me about that. It's the waiting rooms I’m talking about... (Pause) Have you ever given them much attention? The old-fashioned couch with dark covers, the upholstered furniture that usually doesn’t match... the old armchairs? Stuff bought at antique shops and garage sales, coming together there by accident, for the convenience of the patients. It doesn't belong to the real house. The doctor has quite another sort of living room for himself, for his wife, his wife's friends... lavish... lovely... If you took one of the chairs from the living room and put it in the waiting room, well, it'd stick out like a sore thumb. Not that the waiting room isn't just right — nothing special of course but quite proper, quite respectable... I’d like to know if you — when you went with your little girl — if you took a good look at the chair you sat in?
CUSTOMER
Well, um, no, I guess I didn't.
MAN
Of course not. You weren't sick ... (Pause) But often even the sick don't notice. They're all taken up with their sickness. (Pause) Some of them just sit, staring at their finger which is making meaningless markings on the polished arm of the chair. They're thinking — so they don't see.
MAN
(Pause) And what an impression you get when you get out of the doctor's office and cross the waiting room and see the chair you'd been sitting in awaiting the verdict on an unknown sickness just a short time before! Now, there's another patient on it and he's hugging his secret sickness too. Or perhaps the chair is empty — impassive — waiting for the next patient to come and sit on it. (Silence.) Why did I think about that?
CUSTOMER
Yes... Actually...
MAN
You don't see the connection? Neither do I. (Pause) You recall an image, you recall another image, they're unrelated, and yet — they're not unrelated — for you. They have their reasons, they stem from your very personal experience. Of course you have to pretend they don't. If we allowed ourselves to expose these connections in everyday conversation we just wouldn’t understand one another. There’s nothing more illogical than analogies based on such private images. (Pause)
But listen, maybe the connection could be this. Do you think those chairs get any pleasure from imagining which patient will sit on them next? What sickness lurks inside the patient? Where he or she will go, what he or she will do after the consultation? Of course they don't. And it's the same with me. I get no pleasure from it. There are those poor chairs and here I am. They open their arms to the doctor's patients, I open mine to... some person or another. You for instance. And yet I get no pleasure — no pleasure at all, believe you me — from the train you missed, the family waiting for you, or your other little troubles.
CUSTOMER
I've got plenty, you know that?
MAN
You should thank God they're little. (Pause) Some people have big troubles, my friend. (Pause) You know... Watching the lives of others. I get no pleasure from this. It doesn't even interest me. Quite the opposite, actually... It’s just that I need to share everyone else’s problems, so I can judge life to be futile and vain, to a point where nobody should really mind if it comes to an end. (With dark rage) Proving that to yourself, on and on, without mercy, takes quite a bit of doing, right? You need evidence, you need a hundred and one instances, and—you—must—be—implacable!
Because... Because, my friend, there's something — we don't know what it's made of, but it exists — and we all feel it, we feel it like a pain in the throat — it's the hunger for life! A hunger that is never appeased — that never can be appeased — because life — life as we live it from moment to moment — is so hungry itself, hungry for itself, we never get to taste it even! The taste of life, the flavor and savor of life, is all in the past, we carry it inside us. Or rather it's always at a distance from us. We're tied to it only by a thin thread, the rope of memory.
Yes, memory ties us to... what exactly? To all the nonsense here, the idiocy, the irritations, those silly illusions, crazy pursuits like... you know... Things that today we deem to be nonsense or idiocy, what today is an irritation, even a misfortune, a grave misfortune, look! Four years pass, five years pass, tell me: who knows what savor or flavor these things will have, what tears we will shed over them? How will these tears taste? And life, life! The simple thought of losing it — especially when you know it's a matter of days…
The Man is caught in his thoughts for a moment. The phone rings again, he sends the call to voicemail without looking at the caller ID. The Customer is curious.
MAN
My dad.
CUSTOMER
Take it, don’t mind me.
MAN
No, I can’t.
CUSTOMER
OK. (Pause)
MAN
He keeps an eye on me. (Pause) What he is suffering on my account you cannot imagine. He doesn't eat. Doesn't sleep anymore. Calls me. Night and day. He’s falling apart. Like a rag doll. His gray hair falling out. (Pause) He annoys me. You wouldn't believe how much he annoys me. Oh, that look! It makes my body itch. We live across the street from each other. I put on my coat, I walk out the door, and there he is on the sidewalk. How long has he been there? I don’t know. Then he starts following me. (The phone rings once more. He puts it on vibration mode) If he knew I was talking to you right now, it would relieve him. He’s easy to please, somehow. That’s a gift he has. (Thoughtful) It just appears on his face. Joy.
CUSTOMER
...Why don’t you answer and tell him we are talking, then?...
MAN (ANGER CREEPS IN)
You know what he really wants? He wants me to stay in and take it easy at home -- all cozy and quiet — and let him and his wife look after me, cross the street, pop in with a freshly made cake or a bowl of soup or a whole roast-beef... Home! He says my place is a safe place for me. He can’t understand I need to keep walking and walking and...(Pause) Stay put. And indulge.
MAN (ANGER CREEPS IN)
(He laughs, a scary laugh) That's what he wants! I just want you to see the absurdity of it! Isn't it absurd? It's worse: it's cruel, it's macabre! Don't you get it? Think of New Orleans. Before Katrina. Suppose they knew a Hurricane was coming. Do you think the city would just sit there, calmly in the moonlight, waiting for the flood waters? Not daring to deviate from its ritualized occupations? You’re crazy. They would drop everything and get the fuck outta there! (Wheeling on the Customer) You agree?
CUSTOMER (FRIGHTENED)
Well...
MAN
Well, suppose the people in the Lower Ninth Ward knew? Would they calmly get undressed and go to bed? Fold their clothes and put their shoes outside the door? Creep down under the bedclothes and enjoy the nice clean feeling of freshly laundered sheets? Knowing that — in a few hours — they would be dead? — You think they might?
CUSTOMER
Maybe your father —
MAN
Let me finish. (Starting over) If death, my friend, if death were some strange, filthy insect that just... settled on you, took you unaware, let’s say... You're walking along. All of a sudden a passerby stops you, and, with a finger and thumb cautiously extended, says: "Excuse me, sir, excuse me, honored sir, but death has settled on you!" And with a finger and thumb cautiously extended, he takes it and throws it in the gutter. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But death isn’t an insect. It has settled on many walkers in the city — however far away their thoughts may be, however carefree they may feel. They don't see it. They’re thinking about what they'll be doing tomorrow.
MAN
But I (he gets up)... look, my friend, come here, (he gets the Customer up and takes him under the street light) under the lamp. Come over here. I'll show you something. Look! Under this side of my mustache. See that little knob? Royal purple? Know what they call it? It has such a poetic name. It suggests something soft and sweet. Like a caramel. Epitelioma. The O is stressed. Try it, isn't it soft and sweet? Epitelioma. Understand?
The Customer looks intently, can’t see a thing. It makes him nervous. He smiles like a child that wants to please.
MAN
Death passed my way. He stuck this... flower in my mouth and said: "Keep it, old man. I'll stop by again in eight months — or maybe ten." (Pause) Now tell me. You tell me. Can I just sit quietly at home as my father wants me to — with this flower in my mouth? (Pause) You know what he did? A couple of weeks ago he came over, and I found him lingering in my bathroom with my shaving kit open and my razor in his hands. I asked him “What are you doing?” He said he wanted to shave himself with my razor. He said “If I cut myself then I’ll catch your disease.” (Pause) I'm not home! (Angrily) Ever! What I want is to stand at store windows admiring the virtuosity of salesmen! Because, you see, if ever, for one second, I am not occupied, if ever I’m empty — know what I mean? — well, I might take a life and think nothing of it, I might destroy the life in someone... someone I don't even know, I'd take a gun and kill someone — like you maybe — someone who's missed his train. (He laughs) I'm only joking. (Pause) I'll go now. (Pause) It'd be myself I'd kill. (Silence)
At this time of year, there's a certain kind of peach down south, so good... You can eat them skin and all
MAN
You cut them in halves, you hold them between your finger and thumb, lengthwise, like this... then! (He swallows) How succulent! Pure delight! Like a lover's lips! (He laughs. Pause)
I wish to send my best wishes to your wife and your kids in that home of yours up the river. (Pause as he visualizes a house in the country)
The Man starts gathering his belongings, puts his phone in his pocket.
Will you do me a favor when you arrive, tomorrow morning? As I imagine it, your house is a certain distance from the station. It’s dawn. You’ll be walking. The first tuft of grass you see by the roadside — count the number of blades, will you? Just count the blades of grass. The number will be the number of days I have to live. (Pause) One last request: pick a big tuft! (He laughs) Then: Good night!
He walks away humming through closed lips the tune which the mandolin is playing in the distance. The Customer follows with his eyes—more or less dumbfounded. Then looks away and ponders.
