TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2024 – She Loved Blossoms More is a fascinating if aggressively obtuse movie for a particular taste. At the beginning of the film Hedgehog (Panos Papadopoulos) stumbles out of an opulent closet to answer a phone call. The voice on the other end declares that the “experiment” is over. We dismiss this as cryptic foreshadowing and discover that Hedgehog, along with brothers Japan (Aris Balis) and Dummy (Julio Katsis) are hard at work on an erratic contraption for time travel. But why? Directed by Yannis Veslemes and cowritten by the director and Dimitris Emmanouilidis, She Loved Blossoms More revels in the mysterious while trying to convey existential notions on grief, control, and mortality. The result is a constantly morphing mystery that demands the full attention of its viewers only to leave them with more to think about.

Mom (Alexia Kaltsiki) is dead and buried in the garden of their family estate in Athens, Greece. Hedgehog, Japan, and Dummy haunt the dilapidating halls of their family villa working on a time travel machine. They are funded by the mysterious Logo (Dominique Pinon) who demands progress with every unwelcome phone call. Logo wants to be able to see his machine work so that he can… That’s just it. Does Logo want to travel time? Does Logo want to travel dimensions? How does the dead mom in the garden factor into any of this? Dummy decides to invite his drug dealer girlfriend, Samantha (Sandra Abuelghanam), over to hang out and the insanity ensues.

She Loved Blossoms More is an interesting piece of work. The film constantly challenges the viewer’s ability to ascertain a sense of time and place while offering few clues about the characters involved and the relationships between them. Maybe that is the point. We are commanded to scrutinize the interactions and dialogue of the handful of players as they play with metaphysics, psychotropics, and grief in order to simply piece a narrative together. Life is weird like that. Right? Yannis Veslemes and Dimitris Emmanouilidis have crafted a rather interesting film. It deconstructs cinematic conventions to lure the audience to lean into the story. Forgive me, this is a little deep but this is exactly what struck me. Do I like it? I am not entirely sure.

On a technical note, the film is dazzling. Production designer Elena Vardava deftly telegraphs monumental changes between locations with mere changes in light and set decoration. Cinematographer Christos Karamanis plays with a lot of various looks almost to a fault. We can’t forget to note the remarkable puppetry and practical effects. Brilliant work here.  That’s not to forget the engaging performances from the intimate ensemble involved. For the most part, the look is consistent. Yet, for some reason, Veslemes can’t resist grainy filters. I did quite enjoy She Loved Blossoms More but it was a fair amount of work. This is one trippy movie, but it will leave you with more questions as the credits roll.

5 out of 10