Tam­ing the Garden

Nes­tled in the rugged rur­al land­scape of Geor­gia the sub­ject of Salomé Jashi’s strik­ing doc­u­men­tary falls to the floor with an almighty cry. Bird­song is lost to the roar of chain­saws and blue sky is replaced by plumes of bil­low­ing grey smoke as an ancient, deeply root­ed tree is dug from its Geor­gian homeland.

At the heart of Tam­ing the Gar­den is this oth­er­world­ly ven­ture: cen­turies-old trees, as tall as 15-storey build­ings, are uproot­ed and trans­port­ed through vil­lages, over hills and across the sea to end up in the gar­den of a bil­lion­aire. Over­see­ing this process is Bidz­i­na Ivan­ishvili, Georgia’s for­mer Prime Min­is­ter whose pres­ence is felt only through mur­murs. How­ev­er, his per­vad­ing pow­er is clear via his unchal­lenged abil­i­ty to pluck hun­dreds of sacred­ly rare trees for his own hor­ti­cul­tur­al desires.

In observ­ing this unique migra­tion process, Jashi’s film unearths a bizarre exca­va­tion project in hyp­not­ic detail. Med­i­ta­tive, sta­t­ic aer­i­al shots and a patient edit from Chris Wright frame a sea of tree­tops with an ethe­re­al mys­tique before the cam­era fol­lows the tree’s spell­bind­ing jour­ney on foot. Along­side co-cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Goga Dev­dar­i­ani, Jashi con­tends with the chang­ing shape of the land­scape before the cam­era as sacred nature and man­u­fac­tured machin­ery share the frame.

How­ev­er, there is one par­tic­u­lar moment that cap­tures this para­dox­i­cal beau­ty: a wide shot of a giant tree, roots wrapped and tied to a barge fer­ry, float­ing alone in the Black Sea. The visu­al spec­ta­cle is rem­i­nis­cent of the humon­gous hauled river­boat in Wern­er Herzog’s Fitz­car­ral­do. Here, Jashi’s cam­era gazes in a mix­ture of awe and dis­be­lief, as if it already knows this is the film’s defin­ing shot.

Else­where, the film’s obser­vant lens joins hired con­trac­tors around camp­fires and locals in dim liv­ing rooms to dis­cuss the fate of these trees: whether this is a state-fund­ed oper­a­tion, a per­son­al quest for Eden or a spir­i­tu­al project to live longer. For the trees, Ivan­ishvili pays for new, acces­si­ble roads for the small towns, yet many res­i­dents are vocal in their resent­ment of the bribe. In one sequence, locals gath­er in a funer­al pro­ces­sion to bid farewell to one of these huge entities.

Indica­tive of the director’s approach, these mov­ing moments are shot with a fly-on-the-wall style that main­tains a strict dis­tance. In turn, their unfil­tered can­dour leads to raw admit­tance of the uneth­i­cal pow­er imbal­ance and eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty that under­scores this doc­u­men­tary. With a hyp­no­tis­ing sound­scape from Philippe Ciom­pi and Celia Stroom, Jashi’s enchant­i­ng por­trait of man’s pow­er over nature is shroud­ed with mystery.

Though Jashi’s direc­to­r­i­al posi­tion is com­plete­ly rescind­ed, there remain so many unan­swered ques­tions sur­round­ing the film. How did Jashi gain access to Ivanishvili’s project? No idea. Does she know the true pur­pose of pluck­ing hun­dreds of these sacred trees? We nev­er real­ly find out. Tam­ing the Gar­den is ulti­mate­ly a work of exca­va­tion itself, unearthing the gra­tu­itous acquired own­er­ship of nat­ur­al land­marks and com­mu­ni­ty mono­liths in a con­densed 90 minutes.