As Environmental Documentaries go, there are must have templates to push the narrative structure. We have Salomé Jashi's Taming the Garden (2021) which shuns the conventions of the ecological doc: devoid of genre stereotypes, no political rallies to record the events, protests, opposition from media or altercation with the government body. I have seen the viral video of trees floating on a barge along the Black Sea coast few years back, i knew the backstory and what was coming in the documentary about this filthy Rich politician doing his Fitzcarraldo act. It took me by surprise as the documentary doesn't take the route of examining/exposing Georgian Politician Bidzina Ivanishvili with tree fetish.
Jashi opts to patiently capture the breath-taking process of dendrological disaster right from felling of giant tress, transporting it and replanting it in the arboretum of the tycoon. There are locals who help with the whole cutting, transportation of trees while the elderly stand helpless and the young capturing it in their mobile. We get long stretches of the process, unending sound the biosphere, bulldozers, the sea confined mostly to minimalistic score. Some of the locals get to express their thoughts but Salomé Jashi's doesn't spend too much time here. It doesn't feel the need for a narrative as many thigs are said along this trajectory journey. For example, the ending farewell of the giant tree, we can sense the atmosphere but it doesn't have huge lines with outbursts, but it's very sad. It is followed by a mind-blowing wide shot of the tree on the barge across the Black Sea. It reminded me of Theo Angelopoulos Ulysses' Gaze (1995) which has an amazing scene of an enormous statue of Vladimr Lenin on a tugboat floating across the sea. In the closing, the camera shows us the garden, it looks artificial with the uprooted trees as the water sprinklers is activated with classical chants as background score.
Overall, i want to recommend this only to the audience who love slow cinema as the film doesn't take any sides and you may feel helpless just like the spectators in documentary. There are many layers of complexity and it's amazing Jashi's expresses a lot while saying so little.
Jashi opts to patiently capture the breath-taking process of dendrological disaster right from felling of giant tress, transporting it and replanting it in the arboretum of the tycoon. There are locals who help with the whole cutting, transportation of trees while the elderly stand helpless and the young capturing it in their mobile. We get long stretches of the process, unending sound the biosphere, bulldozers, the sea confined mostly to minimalistic score. Some of the locals get to express their thoughts but Salomé Jashi's doesn't spend too much time here. It doesn't feel the need for a narrative as many thigs are said along this trajectory journey. For example, the ending farewell of the giant tree, we can sense the atmosphere but it doesn't have huge lines with outbursts, but it's very sad. It is followed by a mind-blowing wide shot of the tree on the barge across the Black Sea. It reminded me of Theo Angelopoulos Ulysses' Gaze (1995) which has an amazing scene of an enormous statue of Vladimr Lenin on a tugboat floating across the sea. In the closing, the camera shows us the garden, it looks artificial with the uprooted trees as the water sprinklers is activated with classical chants as background score.
Overall, i want to recommend this only to the audience who love slow cinema as the film doesn't take any sides and you may feel helpless just like the spectators in documentary. There are many layers of complexity and it's amazing Jashi's expresses a lot while saying so little.