Exotic decadence (story idea)

When Maria and I used to talk about our backyard all of my ideas were intuitively aesthetic while hers were productive. I always wanted to cut down the big Eucalyptus, for example. It was horribly topped, way too overgrown and unruly. Maria wanted to keep it because she thought it made a good climbing tree, provided some shade and had leaves that she thought she could sell. Once she asked the tree if it was OK to cut it. The next day she found a bird nesting in the main fork of its branches. That was the answer, she thought. A few days later we checked again and the bird was gone, only feathers remaining. We figured Binky, the neighbor's cat got it. Now that Maria's gone, the Eucalyptus has been replaced by a small white crepe myrtle and a dwarf plum. The dwarf plum is ornamental and doesn't bear fruit. Maria always wanted a persimmon tree.

I have a vague idea for a film. I have the theme and some images, but no narrative. The theme: the replacement of productivity with aestheticized violence and sterility couched within imagery of an exotic Asia. Everything would be full of beautiful touches and rich meanings and yet be (literally) sterile. Some ideas for sets... turn the patio into a Chinese square with lanterns, fake Chinese writing, and exotic storefronts. Turn the garage into some kind of showroom for the entertainment of wealthy, jaded patrons. Then later, create a springtime wonderland set with delicate trees and hyperreal foliage. Images: in one scene we see a couple picking flowers off a tree. The flowers turn out to be small birds which the couple promptly eat. In another, we see a cactus that bleeds blood and cries. Courtship is conducted via an extension of Victorian flower language—only more difficult and more arcane and fraught with social consequences. In this world emotions lie buried beneath layers and layers of games, rules and traditions. In another scene we see astronomical devices to amuse and entertain guests, along with various fights to the death. The story might be the typical one about the Western male courting the Asian female, the colonialist dream. But this one ends differently— the female lead discovers that the West, in a very different way, is exactly the same. What a mournful aria she sings upon this sad revelation.