Prada’s FW23 ad campaign “In conversation with a flower” explores the dominant relationship that humans have with flowers and with nature generally. Ferdinando Verderi provides creative direction, with styling by Olivier Rizzo.

These surreal images by Willy Vanderperre [IG]put humans and flowers on an equal footing with each other, upsizing flowers until they take on their own, otherworldly persona and emotions — leaving the entire cast of actors and flowers to deal with each other eyeball to eyeball.

When Prada writes that the campaign “is an ode to the uncanny beauty of the everyday” . . . well AOC fidgets. Seriously, Prada, you are probing far deeper concepts here.

These unique flowers interact with five actors - Benedict Cumberbatch, Hunter Schafer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Letitia Wright and Li Xian - “a roster of cinematic idols reflecting Prada’s long-standing relationship with cinema as an expression of cultural ideas and ideals.”

Set to Massive Attack’s darkly cool trip-hop classic “Angel,” the short film explores the question: “What is their view of the sensate nature of these phantasmagoric plants?”

Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours," scripts each talent in a paradoxical conversation with unfamiliar blooms. This is not a stage moment for African violets.

When I watch the campaign video — about five times — the actors are not in charge. It’s the plants doing the communicating and the actors trying to decide if this moment is for real or someone put psilocybin in the orange juice.

It’s the plants who are leaning in and there is no literal dialogue. None of the actors are dismissive of their experiences but some are more open to receive plant intelligence than others. As talented actors they express these differing states of confusion, dismissal and being open to communion.

Perhaps we all need a shot of psilocybin in the orange juice to stop and consider the sensate nature of plants. It’s not only dogs, cats, chimps and elephants who are trying to communicate with us world-domination-seeking humans. It’s plants, too . . . and flowers . . . and grass.

What is true is that plants, in particular, most-likely transcend language and culture. What the Prada film achieves so fabulously is imbuing them with a level of consciousness not really understood today — although science has made great strides since publication of “The Secret Life of Plants” in 1973.

Only in the last few words does the campaign copy as written on the Prada website meet the reality of what we now know about the botanical world, writing that “by virtue of scale, they also become protagonists, living creatures, that can become active participants.”

Good work, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons.