The film is symbol-flooded(I invented the term). It is so full of symbols that it almost makes me tired. Pink. Roses. Typewriter. Printed letters. Lolita. Don Juan. These symbols appeared in a recurring manner. This can be a good thing if these symbols actually tells something. Yet they don't and so they only become meaningless deja vus. And there the use of symbols form a trap, whether intentionally or unintentionally, in which once the audience discovered the use of symbolic references they'll be ever finding other symbols throughout the film. This is exactly what I have done...
Yet besides the tiring symbols, I like the plot of this film. The open end is unexpected, but it looks quite natural once it came out. Sometimes, just sometimes, you could have come to absolutely nothing concrete after all the things you've done and suffered. It's the course of it that matters or is it the end.
If you're comparing this film with Lost in Translation (Seriously I don't see many commanlities in them, except they're both starring Bill Murray (By the way I love calling him Uncle Bill, hehe) and, maybe, the mood of loneliness.) I would say Broken Flowers is a more ambitious attempt. Lost in Translation is somewhat easy to grasp and digest (that's why I said this film suited Americans' taste) because it only covers one or few themes while Broken Flowers dangerously dangles and struggles for balance between a single simple motif and making it look too complicated. Yet whether it succeeded or not, I dare not say.
The scene I love most is the one in which Don is dreaming. Very beautifully shot. And I love the music of the film too. Bill Murray is, of course, a great actor. But do he, or did he, really look like a Don Juan? Hmmm. Not that convincing on that point. But in terms of telling the reluctances of life he's been doing a perfect job.
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