The long awaited Frank E Flowers movie Haven finally made it to the local screen and the public this week and Cayman Net News' arts correspondent Christopher Tobutt gives the film a thumbs up.

In the opening scene we see Shy (Orlando Bloom), meeting Andrea, (Zoe Saldana ) his lover, at Smith Cove. They embrace in the sea, and the camera pans round them. Eerie, strange music sets the mood for the film, suggesting not only an unfamiliar culture, but also love's dark undercurrents and the hidden secret of the heart.

Next the scene changes to something apparently unrelated; a banker or corporate lawyer in the Cayman Islands, Mr Allen (Stephen Dillane) is clearly in a panic; something has gone badly wrong.

"Go in and transfer my account," he aggressively tells his secretary, before calling his accomplice, Carl Ridley (Bill Paxton) in Miami to warn him: "banks here are closing left and right."

Mr Ridley wants to get out of their crooked business and invest in something legitimate. Apparently, he has left it too late.

We understand that they are involved in some kind of fraud or money-laundering operation as we see a convoy of police cars driving along George Town's waterfront.

In Miami, we see Mr Ridley is taking his 18-year old daughter, Pippa, (Agnes Bruckner) out of school during the middle of a lesson after receiving a hurriedly scrawled fax reading: "The Feds are coming."

Then we see Mr Ridley and his daughter flying to Grand Cayman.

The dictionary gives two definitions of 'Haven.' The first definition is, "A place sought for rest, shelter and protection."

Mr Ridley believes that the Cayman Islands will act as his shelter from the storm, but as their plane approaches, we see four cruise ships safely at anchor in George Town Harbour.

The other, literal meaning of Haven is: "A Harbour or Port Facility." Both meanings are shown at once, but the second is a clever reminder of Cayman's maritime foundation.

On arrival at the Cayman Islands we see Mr Ridley frantically trying to get to the bank. There are some interesting shots of local characters, such as a close-up of Elvis the taxi driver, "Isn't there some way around this traffic?" Mr Ridley asks him.

It is the image of 'Aunt' Julia Hydes however, tapping out a rhythm on her drum whilst singing: "It's so funny...I want my money," that has a truly disorientating, haunting quality.

The simple childlike words of her incantation seem to cut through Mr Ridley's bogus world of lies and half-truths (like the child in 'The Emporer's New Clothes').

The use of disturbing and disorientating imagery is maintained throughout the movie; but unlike many other big Hollywood movies that rely heavily on violence or other hackneyed imagery to create a disturbing effect, the sense of disturbance here is achieved in a deeper and more subtle, almost subliminal way.

The film carries with it the same kind of inward disturbance that belongs to a chain of unfinished sentences; of emotions that die before they are properly articulated.

The theme of lost innocence is re-visited in the next scene, as we see Mr Ridley's daughter, Pippa, who was ready to celebrate her 18th birthday with her friends, now thrust  unwillingly into a strange, alien world.

A young Caymjanian. Fritz (Victor Rasuk) comes to her father's condo and sees Pippa through her window.

Fritz wants to be a cool gangster, but coolness continually eludes him. He first tries to impress Pippa by offering her a conch shell stolen from outside the front door. She seems to see through him straight away, but doesn't care; she is filled with anger: her father has taken her away from the world she knows.

As she gets in Fritz's stolen BMW he tells her, ludicrously,  "I run this island," then adds, as if he knows he is not going to be believed, " I'm telling you, not asking you."

He drives the car to a seedy bar and drug den, where Pippa meets a group of girls her own age. They are all snorting cocaine and smoking marijuana.

As Pippa inhales the reefer, so the thin sound of the dub-reggae beat we heard in the background suddenly becomes overbearingly loud and oppressive.

Strange and disorientating camera angles add to the effect, so that we too are made to feel what she is feeling; the sense of nausea that accompanies the first taste of lost innocence.

Next we see a flashback that links us with the opening scene of the movie, and a voiceover tells us of the history of murder in the Cayman Islands.

Then we see we see a young boy hiding behind a boat as he witnesses his father's murder. As a result, we are told, the boy did not speak for five years. He was nicknamed Shy.

The plot then shifts to the present-day relationship between Shy and Andre, and we realize the significance of what is happening: Shy has at last managed to overcome the events of his early childhood, and has learnt to express not only words, but feelings, as he speaks of his love for his boss' daughter, Andrea.

We understand, however, that there are problems: Shy is not considered by Andrea's family to be a suitable boyfriend. He is from the wrong class, (and also, intriguingly hinted at, the wrong colour, in this case, white).

Besides, he is known as a kind of outcast, somebody who doesn't fit in, an odd-ball, and Andrea's family is a very proud one.

There follows a Romeo and Juliet-style scene, as Shy takes his bicycle to his boss' home, and silently creeps through Andrea's window.

As morning comes, Andrea's father hears someone in her room. Next, her brother sees Shy running away across the lawn.

Unwilling to believe that his daughter is in love with Shy, Andrea's father tries to make Andrea say she has been raped.

Orlando Bloom plays the part of Shy with a deep understanding.

Through his acting we gain access to Shy's sensitive, silent world. We better understand the burden of the dark secrets he carries, and his unspoken yearning for love and acceptance, as well as his terrible fear of rejection.

We see Shy's desire for love and to be loved, his first faltering words of true self-expression, being crushed by the self-seeking and un-listening world around him.

The unusual, close-up camera angles that are used throughout the film serve a dual purpose.

Sometimes they are used to make us see the drama unfold from a more human, vulnerable perspective.
Sometimes, too, they are used symbolically. A good example is where we see an underwater shot of a fishing boat, and a fishing net being spread surrounded by a dark blue light.

The boat and net are part of Shy's world, part of his heritage; but suddenly they seem to have turned against him.

The net has caught Shy, and he is powerless. The dark blue light seems to speak of suffocating silence and drowned emotions; of vital words left unsaid.

Shy gradually withdraws once again into the familiar, silent world of his childhood.

Shy's inward cries for love and acceptance are perfectly portrayed during one of his sporadic, anguished telephone calls to Andrea: "I need to speak to you," he says, but she is unable to understand why she has not heard from him for so long.

As a result of his inexplicable silence, Andrea has drifted into a life of drug taking and promiscuity.

Shy eventually comes looking for her, and sees her making love with her new gangster boyfriend.
Distraught, he walks from the scene.

Two narratives run parallel throughout the film, apparently independently of each other and in doing this, Mr Flowers draws attention to the themes that link both of them.

Both are stories of greed, and how real feelings and real values can be trampled on and crushed for the sake of money, but both stories come to different ends of the social spectrum.

Mr Flowers has the rare ability to describe complex issues simply and quickly, by using powerful, often subliminal, visual metaphors and symbols.

Like many true artists, Mr Flowers works intuitively, from the subconscious mind.

Because of this, the film is given a magical, haunting quality that stays with the viewer for a long time afterwards. This film is not entertainment; it is true art.

The many issues and images dealt with in the film make it difficult to pick on one that really sums up the feeling of the work, but it is essentially about losing the things that truly matter, about losing purity and innocence and honesty, not only on a personal level, but also on a collective level.

In the final scene, Zoe approaches Shy on the boat dock where he witnessed his father's death: "I lost my way, and I'm sorry," she says. "I really needed you, you were my heart."

christopher@caymannetnews.com