NOW ON VOD! Directed by Yannis Veslemes, She Loved Blossoms More is a surreal science fiction dark comedy that delves into the madness of grief and obsession. The film follows three brothers who build a time machine, hoping to bring their deceased mother back to life.
This is the story of three brothers—Dummy, Japan, and Hedgehog—living together in near isolation. Following in their father’s footsteps, the boys attempt to reconstruct his time machine experiment in hopes of bringing their dead mother, Samantha, back to life. Their lab is a chaotic mess of wires, scanners, and computers from decades ago. We witness their first attempt on a living creature—a pig. With the press of a button, power surges, lights flicker, and the animal vanishes—only to return moments later without its skin. Despite the failure, they have successfully sent a living being to another dimension and brought it back.
Their daily lives reveal both obsession and decay in their home and their daily routine. Dummy, with his slick Elvis-style hair, sleeps in the car where their mother died, as if staying close to her memory will keep her spirit near. Each new experiment grows bolder, yet often lacks that important attention to detail. When they test the chamber on a chicken, the results are even stranger—the head is transported while the body remains behind because Dummy forgot to lock the doors.
Their situation livens up a bit with the arrival of Dummy’s girl, also named Samantha. Her presence injects both energy and danger into the group. Together they drink, snort lines of cocaine, and take other psychedelics. As night falls, dreams and hallucinations blur into waking life. Hedgehog envisions a surreal, vagina-shaped flower speaking in his mother’s voice and pleading to be brought back. In an act of desperation, Hedgehog shoves Samantha into the chamber and sends her body to another dimension, leaving her head behind. Even worse, her head is split in half, and she begins spouting nonsense… or is she?
“Three brothers build a time machine, hoping to bring their deceased mother back to life.”
Let’s just say Greece is producing some truly strange cinema. Director Yannis Veslemes takes themes of grief, loss, and obsession to some really gross and abstract levels. Ever since Yorgos Lanthimos brought The Lobster to the U.S., this surreal Salvador Dali-like sensibility has infused itself with everyday human themes.
She Loved Blossoms More follows similar themes to Frankenstein, where three brothers become so obsessed with the loss of their mother, they recreate their father’s experiments to bring her back. They are so focused on the tasks that everyday maintenance, hygiene, and survival take a back seat. The performances of the three brothers, Panos Papadopoulos, Julio Giorgos Katsis, and Aris Balis, are subdued, with each just millimeters away from going over the edge.
The brothers’ attempts to defy nature and science in their quest to overcome death draw them closer to their goal, but should they be tinkering with this much power? The brothers also live under the shadow and legacy of their equally eccentric father, Logo, who appears to criticize their work.
As a film, the production design of She Loved Blossoms More is strangely beautiful. Their home laboratory is halfway between reality and Tim Burton. It was once a beautiful mansion, now fallen into decay. Their “time machine” is made from their mother’s belongings, yet the film’s title reveals a great deal about their relationship with their mother. The fates of their animal subjects, along with Samantha, are depicted using practical puppetry, making them both eerie and disturbingly real.
She Loved Blossoms More is a Frankenstein-inspired descent into grief, loss, and family dysfunction. By fusing surreal visuals with raw emotion, Yannis Veslemes tells a story that is both grotesque and tender, capturing how love and grief can twist our own realities.
For more information about She Loved Blossoms More, visit the Dark Sky Films website.
"…Frankenstein-inspired descent into grief, loss, and family dysfunction."
