LITTLE JOE

Alice, a plant breeder, has engineered a new species of therapeutic flowers, called Little Joes. Take a few whiffs and you’re happy, if not quite as perky as before. But with time the flower proves to be more transformative than thought.

In a strange ambience of serene aesthetics and discordant Japanese music, Hausner’s film recalls today’s widespread use of psychotropic drugs and the artificial sense of well-being they procure. Little Joe can well be seen as a contemporary cousin of the body-snatcher films: at its core it warns of a loss of self.