Gardeners, arise! Rosie Stapel's gorgeous doc, PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN, is your new must-see

Who'd have imagined that spending 98 minutes (that span a full year) inside the incredible garden on a large estate in The Netherlands could provide such pleasure and interest? For anyone who is a gardener, or loves gardening, TrustMovies should think that PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN will be a "must." Even for someone like me, who hasn't tended a garden since around age eight, the movie proved captivating. It is certainly one of the most beautiful visual and philosophical looks at the productive collaboration between man and nature to find its way onto film.

The filmmaker, Rosie Stapel, shown at left, is a relative newcomer to the documentary field, though she has worked in art departments, on production design and as an art director for nearly two decades. Though this is her first film, as director, producer, cinematographer and editor, she has very skillfully woven together visuals, conversations and ideas into a tapestry that takes us through a full year in the garden, beginning in January, 2013. Winter has set in, yet there is, as always, plenty to do, and her film's two protagonists, who, we see constantly at work -- Jan Freriks, the 85-year-old pruning master (shown below, left), and Daan van der Have (below, right), the estate's owner and gardener -- must get that job done.

The movie may put you in mind of that little-seen gem, A Little Chaos, directed, co-written by and starring the late Alan Rickman, and not only because some of the vegetation here is descended from cuttings from the palace garden of King Louis XIV, but many of the rules of pruning used in this garden date back to that time period, as well.

The pruning master and the gardener have a number of conversations throughout the film, and these are pertinent not only to the garden but to the lives we're living today, and to the way the world is changing. The film's subtitle, Everything Has Its Time, turns out to be applicable not just to the pruning and harvesting -- of which we see much -- but to our world outside that garden, as well.

Unless you are yourself a gardener or are very well-acquainted with a multitude of fruits and vegetables, you will not have seen so many varieties as you will here. While we don't learn all that much about any single one of these, the very act of seeing them and knowing that they exist proves its own reward.

What we do learn is something of the character of the two men we spend most time with: Daan and Jan. The former tells us early on, "To have a beautiful garden, you have to have a very strong desire -- and also be able to deal with the fact that this desire will never be fulfilled." Learn to love what is beautiful and special, he advises, rather than feeling only the frustration. The old-timers have a dry sense of humor, too. "I wish I were 60 again," says Jan. "You mean really young," answers Daan.

Along with all the pruning, and eventually the copious harvests (really something to behold!), we learn some interesting history (fifty years ago, folk spent nearly half their income on food; today it's more like 10 percent) and even a get a recipe or two (fish fried on a fig leaf will capture a delicious taste in the skin). We watch as apprentices are trained, mildew hits the grapes, and seasons change from (seemingly) barren (below) to verdant and lush (at bottom).

By year's end you will have experienced a garden as beautiful and fruitful as any you're likely to see -- by a filmmaker we are sure to hear from again -- and soon, I hope.

From Grasshopper Film, in Dutch with English subtitles, Portrait of a Garden opens this Wednesday, October 26, in its theatrical premiere for a one-week-only run at New York City's Film Forum. It will then play The Screen in Santa Fe on November 18, Time & Space Limited in Hudson, New York, on November 27, and then the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio, come February 5, 2017. Click here (then click on Where to Watch) as the weeks go by to see if further playdates/cities have been added.

Just in time for Earth Day, Sylvie Rokab's LOVE THY NATURE hits NYC (and a bit later in L.A.)

Narrated in his usual dulcet tones by that vocal delight, Liam Neeson, and filmed everywhere from the USA to Brazil, the Caribbean and Namibia (the cinematography of the natural world shown here is indeed gorgeous), the new documentary LOVE THY NATURE, written, directed and edited by a young filmmaker named Sylvie Rokab is perhaps the perfect film to see for Earth Day. The earth, as this movie tells us, is a single living system in which all is connected (yes, we're talking Gaia here), and even with all the negative stuff currently happening, the earth can self-regulate. (But that self-regulation might just happen once we human beings have effectively wiped ourselves out.)

Ms Rokab (shown at left) has given us a combination of the usual talking-head experts, including the recently-seen Stephen R. Kellert (from Biophillic Design), Biomimicry's Dayna Baumeister, NASA consultant Duane Elgin and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen -- among a number of others; animation (that's a little too cute for my taste); and the idea that, however far we've come toward inevitable climate change and destruction, there is still plenty of positive thinking (and doing) with which we can busy ourselves.

Along the way, we learn about Descartes, who, for all his intelligence, was a little dumb about animals, and today's powerful corporations, which are even dumber about almost everything (except profit-making). The movie may bring tears to your eyes and repeatedly, both for its beauty and its hopefulness in the face of the almost completely negative behavior by those in power worldwide.

One of the most impressive sections of the film shows us the entire history of the world compressed into a time frame of but a single year -- which certainly puts things into perspective. We learn that over 200 toxins are now found in the blood of newborn babies, and that staying out of the sun to prevent skin cancer also deprives us of Vitamin D -- which helps prevent skin cancer. We learn about biomimicry and its uses, and how we share around 95% of our genes with chimpanzees (which I knew) but also that we share some 25% of our genes with trees (which I didn't).

Occasionally Ms Rokab's visuals don't quite jibe with her words  There's one shot of a woman and a tree that supposedly goes with the idea of "Meaning," but I couldn't help think that a photo of a man and a giraffe might have worked just as well (or badly). But this is minor carping. Environmentalism and social justice, the movie tells us, go hand in hand. So how can we both participate in and take responsibility for this planet we're living on? That's the question. And if we -- and our elected leaders -- don't answer it pretty damned fast, the won't be time for a second ask.

The movie is very good at telling us a lot of things we already know but have not yet acted upon. What the hell: Maybe this time we'll listen and act. But even if we do, if those in power don't turn this into a global initiative, I don't expect it will matter much. So enjoy Earth Day, along with this 70-minute movie (with six further minutes of credits), which opens in New York City at the Cinema Village on Friday, April 22, and in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Monica Film Center on Friday, May 6. To learn more about the film and how else you might view it, visit its official web site here.

DVDebut: Kellert & Finnegan's BIOPHILIC DESIGN: THE ARCHITECTURE OF LIFE

"It's not just 'green,' it's biophilic," one of the interviewees points out during the interesting documentary, BIOPHILIC DESIGN: The Architecture of Life. What's the difference? you may ask, if you, as I, have not heard this term before. Well, as another speaker explains a bit later in this hour-long documentary, this would include using materials obtained from nature, evoking nature via forms and patterns, or bringing nature in via ornamentation. I find that last one a bit suspect: Having a the form of a tree carved into your column, say, is a lot different than actually planting one inside your home. There is a certain amount of what we might call "blather" included in the doc: repetition of thoughts and ideas that begin to sound a bit "canned."

Yet human beings' need for contact with nature and having our architecture designed around that need is clearly important. So hearing from Stephen R. Kellert -- shown above, who wrote a book on this subject and is, along with co-filmmaker Bill Finnegan, responsible for this new documentary -- proves more than worthwhile.

We also hear from other notables on this topic (biologist, naturalist and author Edward O. Wilson, shown two photos below, among them) and see a wealth of examples of this kind of architecture, as well as hearing about the difference this sort of design can make on its residents, workers and even the good old "bottom line." One doctor talks about the lessening of employee turnover, as well as the positive reaction of hospital patients, while another interviewee notes the rise in students' comprehension and learning using this new world of architecture.

You'll get a few surprises along the way, too. Of course you'd imagine Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water  (above) as supreme biophilic design. But who'd have thought that New York City's Grand Central Station was an example of this idea, too? As another speaker notes along the way, "When we set out to build The Leopold Center, our goal was to build the right building in the right place for the right reason using the right materials. That's what biophilic design is all about."

From Bullfrog Films and distributed here in the USA via Icarus Films, the documentary becomes available this Tuesday, April 19, on DVD -- for purchase, of course, but I would also hope for rental, too, in order to reach a wider audience. My granddaughter, who just turned eleven, has expressed interest in architecture as a field of study. When she get a few years older, I'd love her to be able to see -- and be influenced by -- this short film.

Naomi Kawase's SWEET BEAN: nature, nurture, connection and food preparation

Do you maybe need to get away from all this election-year idiocy the media is forever forcing down our collective throat? You won't find a better antidote than the new Japanese film opening this week: SWEET BEAN (An), from filmmaker Naomi Kawase. If you're a foreign film aficionado who enjoys a change of culture and attitudes -- not to mention the joys of cooking, eating and Japanese cherry blossoms -- I don't see how you can go wrong with this lovely, endearing movie.

Ms Kawase, shown at left, blends with a fine intelligence and visual flair the beauty and importance of nature with a moving portrait of humanity struggling to find its place in this world of ours. Her movie offers a near-pantheistic love and acceptance of the natural world as something as close to god as we are likely to get.  Less feel-good than it is feel-connected, Sweet Bean will entice you first of all with its great beauty and sensuousness, and then will bring you into the emotional life of its three main characters gracefully and deeply.

Its story is that of a loneliness felt by the film's major characters -- a high school student (Wakana, above), an old woman (Tokue, below) and the man (Sentaro, two photos below) who manages a small dorayaki shop (that's Japanese fast food: pancakes stuffed with bean sauce), who, once they meet, have much to offer each other.

How they slowly accept each other's help proves the basis and plot of a film that fills its 113 minutes with something as tasty and exquisite as Tokue's amazing bean sauce recipe. We've seen a lot of good movies about cooking over the years -- from Like Water for Chocolate to Chef and Haute Cuisine -- but none, I  think, create anything as magical as the moments in which Tokue prepares that special sauce.

The three performers here do much with relatively little. Elderly actress Kirin Kiki (Still Walking and Returner) is a marvel of tiny tics, big smarts and quiet strength, as real as she is odd and moving. Masatoshi Nagase (The Hidden Blade, Suicide Club, Mystery Train) has the fine ability to make the inner outer, while maintaining a tamped-down machismo. Kyara Uchida (from I Wish, and who is the granddaughter of Ms Kiki) plays the quiet student with a properly burgeoning sense of self-discovery and joy.

The filmmaker provides oodles of tiny, realistic detail that help keep Sweet Bean buoyed and rolling along. TrustMovies does not want to oversell this one because it is a small film -- even if its theme is, finally, quite a big one. I'll just say that my reaction after viewing it was one of gratitude.

From Kino Lorber, the film opens this Friday, March 18, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and is currently scheduled to play in nine other cities across the country, including here in South Florida at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on June 10. Click here then scroll down to see all playdates, cities and theaters.

Michelangelo Frammartino's back -- at Tribeca and MoMA/PS1 -- with ALBERI

Is the equally gifted and unusual Michelangelo Frammartino -- shown at right and further below, of Le Quattro Volte and the just-opened film-cum-art-installation ALBERI -- more of a fine artist than a filmmaker? Why can't these be one in the same? They can, of course (Signore Frammartino is perhaps the best example I could offer), but they usually are not. Most filmmakers are more focused on telling a story and entertaining their audiences, which is pretty much the whole point when tickets are purchased and profit is demanded. This artist's work, while very beautiful and reasonably accessible to intelligent viewers, is less concerned with narrative than with immersion.

Meeting Michelangelo Frammartino proves one of the singular treats of TrustMovies' cinematic life, not only because of the richness and beauty of Le Quattro Volte, and now this new "cinematic installation," Alberi, but because the man himself seems as beautiful inside and out as are his films. So fully alive and filled with wonder and pleasure does he sound and appear that he is at once propulsive and contagious -- in the best of ways -- as he speaks about his latest work.

The first thing Frammartino does as he sees me coming toward him (thanks to my rather large height) is to tell me that I should have played one of his man/tree characters (above, center) in Alberi, which translates into English as "trees." Frammartino himself is on the small side, but so full of energy is he that he seems about twice my size. Alberi is his 28-minute ode to nature, ceremony and tradition, in which his camera (and we) wake to a morning in the midst of a forest in the hills of Southern Italy (locations were Armento, Potenza and Basilicata), then slowly come to life, moving around, over and into a mountain village not unlike the one used for Le Quattro Volte, which was filmed in Calabria. (The village used here seems larger, or maybe more compact, than that in LQV.)

The wind blows, bells toll, and a group of men leave for that nearby forest, carrying with them some small hand tools. Once in the forest, they begin stripping trees of their ivy growth and small branches, and before we know it, suddenly -- well, this is for you to see and gasp at. The film ends with a kind of traditional ceremony that eventually brings us back to that initial image -- but now in a very different manner.

The beauty here is just about staggering, but Frammartino doesn't dwell on it via any usual gorgeous-and-clichéd cinematography, as much as he buries you, wraps you inside it. This forest is immersive, and the installation -- inside the Dome at PS1 in Long Island City, Queens -- allows you to sit or lie on the floor (with cushions provided) and get utterly lost in it. For me the dome's screen, coupled with what and how Frammartino films, while not as large as that of IMAX, proves much more immersive.

There is no dialog in the film, just image and sound. And beauty. That's more than enough. While some of the images may put you in mind of the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul or The Wicker Man, this is uniquely Frammartino. Oh, yes -- one more thing: These films are not documentaries, they are narratives, although they use the documentary style and are based very closely on real life, tradition and ceremony, as they are found in these villages. But the artist has tweaked them all to serve his goal.  Alberi plays now through April 27, via the Tribeca Film Festival and MoMA's PS1.

After I have left the Dome (and watched the film one-and-one half times), I ask Frammartino some questions to learn more about him and his movies. The filmmaker is 45 years old, though he looks, I tell him, a decade younger. "Maybe my work keeps me young!" (His English is surprisingly good, though we have a translator on hand for the occasional missing word.)

While his work may keep the fellow youthful, it does take a good deal of time to produce.  Frammartino spent five years making the 88-minute Le Quattro Volte and a full year making this new (and not even a half-hour-long) film. "I don't work so quickly, it is true." By comparing the country of Italy to a shoe and then using his own foot as an example, the artist points out the areas of Italy, both of which lie in the south, where his films were shot.

Frammartino then tells me how very easy it was to cast the man who played his shepherd in LQV, but how very difficult it was to cast the famous "tree" that must be cut down to enable the ceremony in that same film. "Humans are easy," he smiles, "but nature is difficult." The artist loves nature and wants, via his work, to show us how it connects to us and we to it -- often in ways that we don't expect or even realize on a conscious level as we watch the films. He then explains a theory in LQV that practically defines reincarnation. "But you don't have to believe in that" He assures me. "I myself do not."

Still, there is something primal, maybe pantheistic, in the work of this man, and in his personality, too. You cannot watch his films or spend even a little time with him without being, in a sense, conver-ted. But Frammartino is not proselytizing; he's just being himself.