MovieChat Forums > Broken Flowers (2005) Discussion > Lolita was naked because....

Lolita was naked because....


This is an awakening self reflection of a lonely man. The outside world sees him as a success, he is rich, has lots of ladies, and is very smart and he is to them Don Johnson, with out the T.

It is only he who realises his life is empty; he sees his neighbours life as full and successful with love and children. It is with his neighbour’s help he goes on a journey of self discovery.

As he walks down memory lane he finds a metaphor of his life played out in stages from youth to death. This walk though his life is a daunting downward spiral into the reality of a lonely life and love lost. This journey is played out in chronological order through each of his five past lovers.

1st Lover: Lolita is the shadow of what was once Sharon Stone. Lolita represents his early stage of life where sexual energy and wanton passion drives his forming of relationships. Youthful feminine beauty, the prospect of easy titillating adventures, propel his search for meaningless sexual liaisons. This leads him down a path in life as a Don Haun.
2nd lover: The once great passions of youth that could have been lovers forever are now lost memories in a life that has becoming sterile, asset building, and functional. The loss of his first and most fond love has been settled for second best in sad quest to avoid loneliness.
3rd lover: Is the denunciation of traditional love to seek desperate refuge in our own idiosyncratic peculiar insanities to the extreme of forming relationships with the absurd. The rejection of being hurt to many times, acceptance that love can only be found in dependable objects and in being cynical of what once was.
4th Lover: represents all the cold brutality that life hits you with in old age, the impossibility of forming new meaningful relationships when you are old. The ugly cruelty of age hits him hard, he is alone.

- Interlude of Flower Shop Girl: She is his caring nurse, almost a reflection on a retirement home, only cares out of pity for him. She nurses him through to death.

5th Lover: She is death.... in the grave….where he laments, alone, and cries.

It is only at the end of his journey, on finding death, that he is sad. But it is only when he thinks hes found his son, does he realise that he is truly lonely.

The biggest irony of this film is actually in these posts. All of you who are visually excited by the nakedness of Lolita, are invariably the ones that will read this post. Which is why I named it “Lolita was naked because.... “
I will suggest be careful because you are loitering around the 1st Lover stage…..

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[deleted]

I was amazed by your interpretation of this movie.
It completely makes sense what you are writing about, I would wonder how all the different people understand this film in different stages of life.
I was surely excited by the naked girl and I admit that I am loitering around the 1st Lover stage.

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I have Broken Flowers on DVD and watched it twice and never picked up on that. I'm in debt to Coffee_Monster for that.


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[deleted]



OR..... she is merely an homage to her name, which is LOLITA. If yo are familiar with Nabakov, you might have caught that.

Just saying, you're over thinking all this.


Nice interpretations, don't get me wrong... that's what movies are all about. But honestly it might just be as simple as her namesake.

It was a...."Lolita situation".

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[deleted]

please.....he/she got it off of wikipedia - u can go read it there for the movie plot :)

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Before making broad observations please read the date of the first post on this forum and the date of the post from Wikipedia...

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n ur actually gon tell me that wikipedia would copy this from u???? LMAOOOOO

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it's funny that you refer to wikipedia as a somebody when it's just a massing of information gathered from elsewhere. It's entirely plausible someone copied this synopsis to the wiki, or viceversa.

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Oh no, you're wrong. Wikipedia isn't a sombody, it's something that's alive and living it's own life. Coffee Monster can't possibly have written his analysis here and then on wikipedia afterwards, or that someone else did that.
Wikipedia is only written by itself. Everone knows that.

Or something like that...
lol

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Bu. Mmer.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

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Borracho

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Brilliant interpretation; it reminds me of this short play called "Foreplay: The Art of the Fugue" by David Ives, which portrays the same man at different stages of his life dating three different girls, who all represent the different stages. Looking back, the main character in this play gets more jaded and has a more bleak outlook as the stages progress. The more I think about it, the more similarities I see. You should check it out. It's very good (and very funny)

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great synopsis!

I would have liked to have a more accepting ending, but yeah:

the journey, not the destination.

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Sometimes we mortals fail to realize what life is all about.
However it is so very obvious.
It is all about the journey, our path through the forests, hills, valleys, the booming oasis and the withering desert.
Our destination is inevitable, it is death itself and there is nothing cool or interesting in it when we arrive there...

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technically you wouldn't know before you meet it...

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Well done 'hkirklandsmith'. I think this is a brilliant and thoughtful posting, excellently written and right on the button of how i saw the film and what the film is about. Really heartwarming to read a post by someone who actually understood a film and has the capacity to discuss it maturely.

The only thing that i would add is that the lack of resolution, and the ambiguity (of the ending) leaves him wondering and never knowing who his son is. He will see a possible son in every young boy he sees, reminding him of the loneliness and yearning for the life he might have had, had he chosen a different path. Also as we share in his lack of resolution we in some small way feel his loneliness and pain.

That's how i saw it although i must admit i'm not as good at surmising it in words as you. Many thanks for an excellent post.

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Thanks mate.....

I think the Wrestler sums it up quite succinctly in a grittier and colder way albeit carried along by gritty acting and themed associations with out the obvious witty symbolism and metaphors that Jim chapters throughout his film.

Movies that transport stories on a vehicle of imagery and metaphors boost my mind and tow me out of the manufactured, saccharine, spoon fed, *beep* that bloats the masses. I once got stuck on a flight from LA to NZ, 12 stagnent hours with the cattle, crammed with the small TV on the back of the seat that happened to be broken. I was force fed illegally Blond 2…sigh. It felt like someone had sucked my brain out through my ear and spat it on to the tarmac at Auckland airport.

Give me a rocket into a journey of a mind, through the sole, and land me into a core and all encompassing philosophy.

I found this movie very basic in its simplicity, while the novelty of its delivery, structure and the strength of its gravity moved me. Not quite the depth or complexity of the likes of Fight Club or Spotless Mind, but an endearing yet quirky classic with lots of soul. Just brilliant.

I think it should be...Well done Jim....

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I think it comes down to Jim Jarmusch's way of directing, which i first discovered in Down By LAw. He doesn't fill the screen with 50 different things at once, and doesn't deliver a stry through words, but through actions. Through long sequences of near silence, where the viewer is forced to interpret the emotions and thoughts of the characers.


Great movie, and great director.

Top5 Films:Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress,Treasure of Sierra Madre, Throne of Blood,Goodfellas

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Thank you Coffee_Monster!

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So I'm not as enlightened if I'm visually excited by a naked body? I call shenanigans.



"Weirdness was all he cared about. Weirdness and sex and plenty to drink."

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the Japanese girl in mystery train was naked because...

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