To live is to remember.

August 18, 2006 12:06 AM

Ilha Das Flores video "A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. The end? No. ISLAND OF FLOWERS follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear." A remarkable and devastating 12 minute film from director Jorge Furtado.
posted by maryh (15 comments total)

With special thanks to whatzit for coming to my aid in this AskMe thread.

Unsubtitled YouTube links here.
posted by maryh at 12:07 AM on August 18, 2006

I watched this earlier this afternoon, via that AskMe thread, and considered posting it to the blue myself. It's good stuff. I had a weird dissonant reaction to something that felt like sexism late in the movie, something about women and children being less than pigs, because somebody owns pigs and can take care of them . . . but I didn't get the feeling anyone meant to dismiss women or children, so much as I got the feeling I missed something important. Anybody else have any idea what was happening there?
posted by cgc373 at 12:23 AM on August 18, 2006

cgc373: The tone is so ironic throughout that I assumed he was making a point about how poor women and children were treated in a society that doesn't recognize as valuable anything that can't be bought outright. I'm still hoping to find some more information on the director and his thoughts about this project, i'll post them as I find them.
posted by maryh at 12:39 AM on August 18, 2006

They hate us for our freedom.
posted by rikschell at 3:41 AM on August 18, 2006

"What places human beings after pigs in the priority of choosing food is the fact they do not have money or an owner. Human beings distinguish themselves from the other animals by their highly developed telencephalon, the opposable thumb, and by being free. Being free is the state of one who has freedom. Freedom is a word that the human dream feeds on, that no one can explain or fail to understand." -- Jorge Furtado

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." - Kris Krisofferson
posted by ?! at 5:33 AM on August 18, 2006

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." - Kris Krisofferson Janis Joplin
posted by Mr_Zero at 5:44 AM on August 18, 2006

Mr_Zero: Are you really that dense, or are you putting us on?
posted by billysumday at 5:49 AM on August 18, 2006

Mr_Zero, for the loss!
posted by sourwookie at 7:01 AM on August 18, 2006

Mr_Zero: Are you really that dense, or are you putting us on? That dense.

World: 1 Mr_Zero: 0
posted by Mr_Zero at 7:51 AM on August 18, 2006

Anybody else have any idea what was happening there? I get freedom = money from it. However my game is a bit off today.
posted by Mr_Zero at 8:30 AM on August 18, 2006

Marvelous documentary maryh. Its style of exposition is alluring and quirky, sort of Monty Pythonesque collage fragment stream of consciousness story-telling thrown in with history factoids. It's a mandala of information and then boom, the sad/ugly truth about such poor people raking over the garbage to survive. It impressed me that many people consider it one of the best documentaries ever. In the IMDB it's #14, right after one of my fav documentaries, The Corporation.

The site where it is, Hurluberlu Films is an excellent resource. I also liked the documentary about belly dancers and drummers, Body Language.

Hard to find much written in English about the director/writer Jorge Furtado. Here's one article.
posted by nickyskye at 10:29 AM on August 18, 2006 [1 favorite]

We had to watch this film in my freshman Human Ecology class. it was pretty interesting. The part with the people eating the same food as the pigs was deffinitely heavy.
posted by smackwich at 2:53 PM on August 18, 2006

Karl Marx would have loved this. I did.
posted by kozad at 11:08 AM on August 19, 2006

cgc373: "It's good stuff... "

So is the documentarian saying we should forego freedom because no one can explain it or fail to understand it? That we should treat humans and pigs equally, and place tomatoes higher in value because they are our sustenance? Based on whatever resources are available, we should not differentiate ourselves from pigs due to the opposable thumbs thing? We should not use things like money or telencephalons to differentiate?

Rather than have a society, we should just all sit under bodhi trees and contemplate our navels? Or is he saying that if something is owned it should have more value and worth than a human being who is free? Free means worthless? Is this what this guy was trying to say almost twenty years ago?

Kozad: "Karl Marx would have loved this. I did."

This is precisely why Marx was full of shit. Sounds good on paper maybe. The math of it, when taking 'free' literally. In actual practice however, it's complete and utter bullshit and you all know it. Jorje Furtado was using his telencephalon to make garbage out of random bull pucky. I want those ten minutes of my life back.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:39 AM on August 19, 2006

Wow, ZachsMind, I'm kinda surprised how hostile you are about this. I didn't thing it solved any problems or got me closer to enlightenment or anything, but it did some useful work, it asked some questions.
posted by cgc373 at 10:41 PM on August 19, 2006