As we know, we can smell the wonderful aroma of lavender, look at it’s gorgeous foliage and flowers and even listen to songs about lavender (for more information have a look at our Lavender’s Blue article), but what about watching lavender? Well here’s our list of lavender movies, so that you can take your pick of what to curl up with for a truly lovely lavender evening. We’re thinking a stack of lavender shortbread, a drop of lavender syrup in a glass of fizz, a spot of our remarkable lavender essential oil bubbling away in an oil burner and a lavender film on the telly. Bliss!
Ladies in Lavender
Ladies in Lavender is a 2004 British drama film written and directed by Charles Dance, who based his screenplay on a short story by William J. Locke. Set in picturesque coastal Cornwall, in a tight-knit fishing village in 1936, Ladies in Lavender stars Judi Dench and Maggie Smith playing the leading roles of sisters Ursula (Dench) and Janet Widdington (Smith). Their peaceful lives are upended when they discover a handsome stranger on the beach below their house. A gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, Andrea is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. The Widdington sisters nurse him back to health, but have no idea the disruption that this talented young man will cause to both them and the community they live in.
The Lavender Hill Mob
The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 comedy starring Alec Guinness as a mild-mannered bank clerk whose sudden compulsion to rob the bank he works for causes all manner of chaos. Henry Holland (Guinness) has been trusted with delivering gold bullion for 20 years and is considered a safe pair of hands by his employers. However, Henry harbours dreams of becoming rich and hatches a plan to steal the gold when he makes the acquaintance of the artist, Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway). The pair realise that if Alfred melts the stolen gold into miniature statues of the Eiffel Tower, it could be smuggled safely to France and sold on. However, things go awry when the gold statues become mixed in with a group of ordinary statues, leading to a frantic chase as Henry and Alfred try to recover the gold without their crime being detected. The film is named Lavender Hill, a street in Battersea where the pair live, which was so titled due to the lavender fields that existed there in Victorian times.
Lavender
For something a little more exotic, why not try Lavender. This is a Malayalam film written by Anoop Menon and directed by Altas T. Ali. It is a remake of Hong Kong filmmaker Andrew Lau’s 2006 South Korean filmDaisy. It stars Rahman, Nishan, Anoop Menon, and Thalaivasal Vijay in the lead roles. Notably, the film features a promotional song composed by multiple-Oscar winning composer A. R. Rahman.
The Silver Screen: Colour Me Lavender
Actor Dan Butler hosts this documentary survey of homosexuality as depicted in movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age. The film takes viewers on a tour through the hidden and not so hidden gay undercurrents of Hollywood’s Golden Years. Butler acts as tour guide as he uncovers, despite efforts to launder American cinema of even the faintest traces of gay influences, Hollywood’s squeamish fascination with gay eroticism and camp.
