Taming the Garden

Salomè Jashi, GEO/CH 2021, 91 min, OmeU

A tree is uprooted and removed from its base. Large, solid, steadfast, a valuable ivenstement in itself It moves, is driven over roads, floats along the Black Sea coast. An irritating image. Georgian director Salomé Jashi describes with great human care the realization of a project that overrides the rules of nature. The technique of the tree transpositions is fascinating and brutal, the wooden giants groan and crack. But why? For a billionaire’s dream of his own personal Garden of Eden. Fed by human hubris, the power of money makes the desire to transcend the limits of humanity come true – if only because the oligarch can. But where is the beauty? Not in the perfectly cut lawn at the foot of the newly arranged forest park, but perhaps in the faces of those Georgian villagers that have been robbed of a piece of their history and look at the uprooted trees and mourn.