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starring: Boris Aljinovic, Paul Austin, Dominik Bender, Susie Bick, Jorg Biesler
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786304431771
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6304431775
Label: Columbia/Tri-Star
Manufacturer: Columbia/Tri-Star
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Columbia/Tri-Star
Release Date: March 16, 1999
Running Time: 85 minutes
Sales Rank: 22447
Studio: Columbia/Tri-Star
Theatrical Release Date: August 07, 1996
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Hal Hartley's three-part film about desire and commitment has an interesting experimental quality: the first and second stories are essentially the same tale with the same dialogue, but with contrasting orientations. Part 1 is set in New York in 1993, with Bill (William Sage) standing in a phone booth, listening to a lover, Emily (Parker Posey), trying to talk him into making a marriage proposal before she accepts another. After they hang up, Bill is on the line with Margaret (Hannah Sullivan), making the same sort of entreaties Emily had made to him. Reality and fantasy start to merge as three homeless men begin advising Bill in a restroom about his love life, and Margaret's husband gets ready to shoot himself. Part 2 is set in Berlin in 1944, where the preceding story is recycled among a group of homosexual characters. Finally, the trilogy ends in 1995 Tokyo, where we watch a mime troupe distill Hartley's narrative template to its dramatic essence. The overall effect of Hartley's wandering eye for locale and placement is a compelling study of the mysteries of 'story' itself, a formalist issue the writer-director has always dealt with in the most disarming, comic ways. There's less laughter in Flirt than in Hartley's previous movies (though that's not true of his subsequent work), but this is a more baldly self-referential piece than he has made before. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Hal Hartley masterpiece
Hal Hartley appears to be an acquired taste... I have only seen 3 of his films so far (this, the flat-out brilliant Trust, and the okay Henry Fool) but he's clearly one of the most underappreciated American directors working today. I think the delivery of his dialogue is what kills it for most people. It's very deliberate and generally not filled with an overkill of emotion. I find this approach allows me to listen to what the characters are actually saying (as opposed to just how they're saying ... Read More
Rating: - Not your typical romantic movie
FLIRT is not your typical romantic movie of the 90's (when it was filmed). But that's what makes it so great. If you are tired of the "boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back" scenario, then you'll like FLIRT. If not, go rent SHE'S ALL THAT with pretty boy Freddie Prinze, Jr. And spare me the details, please.
I would also suggest that when viewing this film, you not concentrate on the fact that many of the lines are repeated from one setting to the next ... Read More
Rating:  - My Thoughts
I thought it was very interesting of how the three stories are somewhat different but the outcome is the same. It's as they have a connection between each other, even though each story takes place in a different environment and time all together. As if they all had a vision of this event happening, and that's what makes it so intriguing.
Rating: - not his best, but we're talking about a genius
Hal Hartley is way ahead of his time. This is not his best film, but it's definitely worth watching. I first saw an excerpt in a sociology/religion class which hooked me: advice on love and commitment in a bathroom. This film takes chances, and some of them aren't that entertaining, but overall it's not as bad as elsewhere reviewed on this site.
Rating: - This is not about Parker Posey--it's about film and language
I find it amusing that people have been lured to watch this film by indy queen Parker Posey. As all Hal Hartley films tend to be, dialogue and narrative is negated and transformed by repetition and by intentional "non-acting". I mean, do people really think all the actors are acting this poorly? By having the actors not act, the ideas cannot be discolored by subjective interpretation. The film strips away traditional storytelling by repeating it in three forms. The narrative disappears in ... Read More
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