Interview and Review: Day of the Flowers

Day of the Flowers is the first British film set in Cuba since the 1950s. The plot follows Rosa (Eva Birthistle), a Scottish political activist, who travels to Cuba to bury the ashes of her father, supposedly a veteran of the Revolution. But Rosa’s plan for a socialist holiday with grubby friend Conway (Bryan Dick) is interrupted when her materialistic, gregarious sister Ailee (Charity Wakefield) tags along. Things start to go downhill as naive Rosa finds trouble seemingly everywhere: tensions mount and various home truths are revealed. The film also stars Carlos Acosta, famous Cuban ballet dancer, as Tomas, a tour guide and generally decent chap. I spoke to director John Roberts about his recent venture.

For me, the human element is the most important aspect of Day of the Flowers. Would you agree?

Yes, that is what really drew me to the script. The human story grabbed me after about three pages – with the relationship between the sisters – particularly the older one who was in a crisis.

Although it is ostensibly about the two sisters it focuses on Rosa – the film literally starts and ends with her. What about her, or her type, stood out as worthy of investigation?

I found Rosa an interesting character because she seemed so conflicted and unable to square everything. She was trying to make something good out of what was much more complex, and when I got to Cuba I saw that you can’t ignore the realities. She seemed like a throwback in some respects, but actually became more relevant with what’s been happening recently (financial crisis et cetera), and there’s been a resurgence of people protesting.

I thought that she was almost relying on politics to make up for her own problems dealing with life.

There is a truth there. Without wanting to be too broad, politics often serves as an outlet for other things, even at the highest levels. With people who are dogmatic you think ‘what’s driving them?’. There was definitely a sense of that with Rosa – a lot of stuff going on underneath ­which took a while to tease out.

Were you tempted to explore Ailie more? She remains largely the same throughout.

She does, and I thought that she was the more level-headed of the two – a little more intuitive. But actually a whole backstory about them emerged very late in the writing process. Without revealing too much, we were aware that something hadn’t quite been addressed. Eventually the penny dropped.

I suspect that the main criticism levelled at Day of the Flowers will be that it can seem obvious at times – the characters definitely are ‘types’. But this is slightly irrelevant, because they were intended to be ‘types’.

Having said all that, the Cuban element is nonetheless prominent. Was the inclusion of this country a major aspect of planning the film, or was its prominence accidental?

It was very important for the writer – she’d been there many times. I think Cuba acts as a symbol in the West, though I’m not quite sure of what it stands for now. So it was important on that level, and I cannot think of anywhere that has that Romantic idea of revolution. What I was interested in was the gap between that and the reality.

And that’s Rosa’s issue. For her, Cuba is an image, it stands for something but is not a real place.

Yes, and so many people have that. A lot of the crew were keen to go because they thought they knew what Cuba meant. After three months a number of them had changed their ideas quite a bit. I went in thinking ‘what I see, I see’, and stuff just started to filter through. The people are very well educated and absolutely wonderful. I found it visually stunning, partly because there is no advertising – none of the clutter that you see in the West. So it is a remarkable place.

In terms of the visuals, you are providing a condensed image of Cuba, so in a sense you are summarising it for viewers who haven’t been. Did you try hard not to act like Rosa by romanticising and simplifying?

Yes I was very aware of that, and I also found it more interesting than the ‘Buena Vista Social Club view’ of it. In terms of the infrastructure there’s so much Soviet and East German stuff, like apartment blocks. And then on top of that it’s very clear that everything is changing – mobile phones are starting to be allowed for example. So we were mixing it up, because, while we wanted to stay outside of the cliché, it is still there.

The characters have these various brushes with the dark underbelly of Cuba. Was your experience more savoury?

It’s an incredibly safe country to visit, without doubt safest place that I’ve been to: the people are absolutely delightful. At the same time there is an economy based on sex tourism and that kind of thing which is very clear, and we didn’t want to duck that. But in the end it is not a tragedy, and I wanted to capture the Cubans’ great spirit.

Roberts has indeed captured Cuba consummately. It is beautifully and respectfully shot, accompanied by a fitting soundtrack.

With regards to Carlos Acosta, you must have had some reservations about casting an inexperienced actor in such a major role?

I didn’t, we were just delighted to get into a room to talk to him. There was only one thing for me – whether he could act. And he was an absolute natural: within two seconds it was obvious that he could hold his own against very experienced actors.

Casting Acosta certainly paid off. He has a real screen presence but nailed a naturalistic performance. Roberts further stressed the quality of all the actors. Eva Birthistle transforms into the most infuriatingly self-righteous pseud since Michael Sheen in Midnight in Paris, and Charity Wakefield’s charisma ensured every one of her scenes was a delight to watch.

Day of the Flowers is not, as Roberts points out, a tragedy: There is humour, there are thrills, there is romance.

Were you consciously trying to keep a balance between a feel good factor and a stinging personal critique?

I certainly enjoyed the humour in the script. Every time we tried to make it tougher politically, it sunk. I felt that the writer had a very light touch and I wanted to keep that. Whether we succeeded I don’t know.

I think that he and his crew have succeeded. You can decide for yourself from 29^th November.