Redefining Black Masculinity in Dumas Haddad’s ‘Flowers’ (2022)
According to his website, Dumas Haddad is a director and writer raised in London who has developed his craft from the world’s of fashion, music & bleeding edge culture. His work elicits powerful uses of analogies and on-the-pulse narrative and character underpinnings. Focused on storytelling and dramatic action, his desire to reframe contemporary culture represents a rising generation of filmmaker that are trying to transform both today and tomorrow’s voices.
His accolades include Vimeo Staff Pick, Film 4, Kinsale Shark Awards, Berlin Commercial and 1.4 On The Cusp of Greatness selection. Flowers, his latest work is a quiet, poetic affair with striking visuals and attention to color that moves with the grace of a theater piece. Using a narrative that employs flowers, pays great attention to detail to color and fairy tale imagery — the director presents a film that works to redefine Black masculinity on the big screen that is not always seen or appreciated.
Flowers:
There are a number of flowers present throughout the short film. In just the start there’s a number of flowers and plants and the sunflower is the most prominent. The Sunflower has been used to express much including positivity, loyalty, admiration. Alternatively, in the flower of language they can be interpreted as false riches. These sunflowers are held and carried by the Prince throughout the film, originally given to him by his mother in the first act of the film.
Colors:
Outside of the striking colors like the sunflowers and other key visuals clues in the film I wanted to point out the contrast between home in the beginning and the outside world when the Prince ventures out:
The warmth of home is evident in the bright and warm tone of The Queen’s keep. It is the place where the mother embraces the son, her sun and the place does not darken when he is in frame. It is a grand palace of comfort, innocence and brightness and familiarity. It is INDOORS.
The darkness of the outside world is evident here in the overcast and then deary placing of the woods. As light leaves to night, the Prince finds himself in an unfamiliar place. He is away from the comforts of home, he is lost, he is exposed. He is OUTDOORS.
Fairy tale Imagery and Symbols:
The mirror: Early on with our first glimpse of the princess, she is seen with a mirror. Mirrors can represent magic or spiritual connections, as they are often used in rituals in cultures around the world. Mirrors can also represent even vanity, as the very important one in the Snow White fairy tale as it was used by the villainous witch.
In most fairy tales, mirrors are present, they are connected to important figures such as royalty, nobility or those of nefarious backgrounds. In this narrative, perhaps this mirror is not magical and it is meant to be interpreted as a woman’s intuition? For, in the end it can be interpreted that it is the Princess who finds the Prince after he is lost.
The Prince’s clothing: The prince character wears an outfit in a bold, bright red color. When we see him trekking through the woods he could be Little Red Riding Hood. He could be the Little Match Girl, a lesser Danish fairy tale character who is often seen through media with a red piece of clothing, be it a tattered coat that is red, or a dress or scarf. The color of his clothing helps the audience label him as a major player in this story. The color also sets him apart from his brothers, the four older princes whom we are introduced to in the beginning who all wear muted, darker colors.
I am reminded briefly of the Biblical story of Joseph and the coat of many colors: given to him by his father and envied by his older brothers. It was the very clothing that served as a catalyst in being sold in Egyptian slavery by his jealous brothers and separated from his family, marking his own coming of age story. It is also important to note that depending on the time period and where you are in the world, colored clothing, particularly brightly colored clothing that had to be dyed was something that only royalty and the enormously wealthy could afford.
So that’s worth noting that while his clothing certainly sets him apart from others–it would also serve to label him as possibly easier to trick, tempt or attack which does happen in the woods in his encounter with the witch-like character holding the implied poisoned apple she offers him.
The apple: Ah, the infamous apple.The female character with woods with the apple can be interpreted a temptress, a witch, a siren like character. Her attempting to gift the Prince with this piece of fruit calls to mind the witch character in the Snow White story. In this context we can even link the story of the Biblical fruit most often depicted as an apple that cast Adam and Eve out the Garden of Eden.
I would also note that this character has drooping flowers, the only other flowers really seen in the film after the prince leaves home. This could be interpreted a number of different ways: perhaps this character often leads others, youth astray? Maybe this is someone who does harm repeatedly as we see a pile of apples at her feet, suggesting The Prince is not her first target or victim?
The Four Other Princes: The four other princes present a trickier analysis in this tale that I struggle to place: In fairy tales and folklore across the world, the number three (and seven, perhaps most famously employed in the Snow White tale) holds great significance: think of the three good fairies in Sleeping Beauty. The three wise men came to the birth of the Christ child in the Bible. Alternatively, on a humorous note: the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The four brothers of the prince who leaves home appear three times in the film: first, in the beginning when we are introduced to them before the younger, much loved prince leaves home.
Their second appearance is later in the middle of the story after he finds himself lost and lastly towards the end when he finds the princess. The four older princes are characterized as having their dreams falling from grace and described with words like disdain, malice and malevolence. In the beginning they hold nothing, in the middle they hold plant misters and in the end they all hold pillows. The gifts of plant misters could hint at temporary relief during the journey, especially since they are seen after the prince with now wilting flowers after traveling and meeting the character some may label as the witch.
Their final gifts in the end that they hold are pillows, perhaps hinting at the comfort, the home their youngest brother, the prince, has found in finally meeting the Princess. They may be representing a number of things in this narrative but my best guess when thinking about the significance of the number four is that they are the four cardinal points: North — South — East — West. They could also represent the four phases of the moon or season to represent the passage of time. Either way, the fact that they meet the young Prince three different times could point back to the main point of numbered significance.
Perhaps–they are past the age of adolescence, they’ve made the transition into adulthood and that’s why they are characterized as bitter and having failed dreams. Another more abstract interpretation that ties in closer with their presence being tied with nature (four cardinal points, four phases of the moon, etc) is that these young men are dead, these are their ghosts. They have passed away and now their presence, heavy and nonspeaking remain in this world?
Black Masculinity, Black Representation On The Screen
Haddad’s Flowers is a fairy tale inspired coming of age short film that pushes against the stereotypes that plague Black men that are often seen and internalized on screens everywhere but especially on the big screen. They also aren’t usually cast to be “The Princely ‘’ characters or the hero in their own stories. From the dawn of the polarization of cinema and Old Hollywood, representations of people if color, particularity Black men were not always explored outside harmful images or Blackface was employed.
If we go back to the topic of presentations of masculinity that don’t veer into toxic or stereotyped images on the screen, Black boys and Men don’t always have the chance to be vulnerable as the Prince in this film does. He leaves home and literally gets lost on his first big adventure away from home.
Heavy is the crown, he leaves home with a responsibility to uphold, to find the princess. He doesn’t quite nail this or can be seen as lacking or not having it all together. He’s approached by a person in the woods whose “gift” implies that they want to do him great harm or lead him greatly astray. He finds himself in unfamiliar territory, with no allies, all on his own. The beginning of Flowers and the end of the film marry each other. “One line is repeated: “The crown is heavy”.
There’s something really poetic in how this Prince leaves home without a viable weapon. He leaves home with the sunny, bright flowers, his mother gave him. Can beauty be weaponized? Of course. But the Prince doesn’t hold them as a weapon, perhaps not even a shield to the outside world he enters, alone. They seem to be a gift, a heartfelt gift to be given — which he does — to the Princess at the end of the story. The flowers are home, a representative of home, or maybe his heart and they are to gifted to the one he will call home, the one he will give his heart too.
Since the film is inspired by 1930–1950’s Disney films which explored lot of fairy tales and most of the screen time of those particular films explored a more feminine angle/point of view/focused more on the princesses — Flowers is an intriguing tale in which a Prince is centered.The subverting of the fairy tale elements charmed me too, when I later thought back to the prince. In an interview with the Director, Haddad noted that: “The exploration of ‘inversion’ highly informed the film’s entire approach; seeing our characters in distinctly designed costumes which avoided a ‘period’ feel, seeing the youngest in a family line being given away and this character being a Prince instead of the expected Princess.”
Yet not all is lost. As the film shows: in the end he finds the Princess. His task done, the love of his life at his side. He technically does win, his Princely status validated, his heart finally at rest. This tale ends and the narrative speaks of maturity and finding hope again. The end of the film speaks of finding the person you’re meant to be with after the storms and periods of being lost. I also think back to the parallels that link the beginning to the end of the film. The speeches of the mother and the princess mirror each other and gestures–a gentle hand to his face.
Perhaps an alternative interpretation could point to how one may feel leaving their family and entering into martial union with another–leaving home to make a home with another who becomes your rock. Most importantly, with the fairy tale imagery in the film, remind us of the Prince, our main character who is granted a happy ending, who is centered in his own story. Not quite seen as a novelty in today’s age but still one where nuanced representations are still looked for and cherished on the big screen that is not always seen, appreciated or valued.
Flowers (2022)
An Afrofuturistic fairy tale of love, following a ceremony of a mother giving away her son. Watch the film here on Vimeo.
Director & Writer: Dumas Haddad
Cinematographer: Olan Collardy
Producer: George Telfer
Creative Director: Adémidé Udoma
Original Score: MIINK
Production Designer: Jade Adeyemi
Costume Designer: Ola Ebiti
Production Company: Agile Films
Starring: Sheik, Kenechi Carmel Amamgbo & Afua Hirsch
Prince Narration: Yann Gael
Brothers: Joshua Kekana, Tienne Simon, Alexandre Sappa, Tani
Grade: Matthieu Tollet at The Mill
Editors: Dumas Haddad & James Bradley
Sound Design: Bankey Ojo
Directors Assistant: Emm Le Chat
Commissioned by: Panasonic
Shot on the Lumix GH6 with Zeiss Superspeeds
Featured on:
shortoftheweek.com/2022/05/19/flowers/
directorslibrary.com/interview/flowers/
onepointfour.co/2022/05/24/study-in-scarlet/
See more of Director Dumas Haddad on his personal website here and on Instagram.
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