Taming the Garden

Salome Jashi's 2021 Georgian documentary follows a strange operation. The country's former prime minister is collecting century-old trees; these giants, some as tall as fifteen-storey buildings, are uprooted from coastal villages and moved to his private garden. The film shows the moving itself. To take a tree out, roads are widened, power lines are cut, fields are crushed and the tree is carried by barge across the sea. Those images become surreal; an enormous tree floating upright on the water is the film's known image. The documentary offers no explanation and names nobody. The villagers discuss the money paid for a tree, the landscape being lost and the arguments between neighbours among themselves, while the camera simply waits. The relationship of power is stated nowhere and stands in every frame. Who it's for: those who like observational documentary and films about power and nature. Who it's not for: viewers expecting explanatory narration; the film supplies no context and moves slowly.