29.4.18

How green was my GARDEN



The past is indeed a foreign country.
This means it is often filmed as such,
with an eye for the exotic otherness
that makes it an alien zone.
But Sonja Kröner made with THE GARDEN
a quietly assured, gentle tragic comedy.
An scented film
that delivers the portrait of a bourgeois German family’s 1970s summer
that feels deliciously and authentically as present-tense.


All images here are so piercingly accurate
that they feel like real memories.
A foot stepping out of the loop of a garden...
a rim of grime under a fingernail...
are somehow delivered without fetishization or nostalgia.
The cumulative effect is to make “The Garden” feel like an auspiciously evocative debut,
even if it delivers more on atmosphere
than on fully nourished story.



 Chintzy patterns,
vintage cars,
and space hoppers
are all present and correct in Sonja Maria Kröner’s ode
to the languorous West German summers.

It generates a mood of easy, lived-in authenticity.


The Garden assembles three generations
of an affluent family
at their beloved summer bungalow,
following the death of the grandmother.
Discussions about the future of one of the garden plots sow tensions.
The children squabble over the treehouse,
and try to kill as many wasps as possible...
...and the news that a local girl
has been kidnapped
imbues the bungalow next door
with a sense of danger.
The only thread that somewhat
raises the pulse revolves around one aunt’s
repressed lesbian longings.


In the background,
there’s a buzz of foggy unease.

The radio burbles that story of the missing child... 
the newspapers print salacious details
of the crime
for the old ladies to tut about over tea... 
wasps keep multiplying;
and,
like all good childhood vacation spots,
there’s  the mysterious “artist”
who lives just over the fence,
whose art betrays an interest in doll mutilation...



The family relationships
are not drawn especially clearly,
but that adds to “The Garden’s” choral,
lazy-days feel.
This is family in the most recognizable
and honest sense.
People  take each other for granted and nurse favoritism. 


That is an indolent, hot summer.
Nothing and everything happens.
A tree falls...
plants get watered...
a birthday is celebrated...
kids are lost, found and grounded...
one of the older generation is politely asked
to stop sunbathing nude...
Ilse the old aunt
seems on the verge of a tentative
of same-sex romance,
but is made to feel ridiculous
for wearing lipstick to lunch.
The children bounce around on Hoppity Hops, venture
into the forbidden territory
beyond the fence...
and sing a childishly racist song
that refers to child murder and cannibalism...


The images are rich,
in a precisely calibrated palette.
The framing from DOP Julia Daschner
sometimes sacrifices discipline for immediacy.
But more often it picks out
nicely observed moments of humdrum activity,
like making a bed with blankets
rather than a duvet,
or briskly cleaning one’s nails
with a nail brush.
The locations, interiors and costuming
are terrific,
with every corner of this contained,
microcosmic world
feeling authentic to its 1970s German setting.



And, perhaps most impressive of all
for a neophyte director,
Kröner gets natural,
unselfconscious performances
from every member of her big,
generations-spanning ensemble,
playing a family
who may be nothing like your own,
but who will remind you
of them
anyway.

By Giulia Ghica Dobre






Production: (Germany) A Prokino Filmverleih presentation of a Walker + Worm Film production, in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Westdeutscher Rundfunk.
Producers: Philipp Worm, Tobias Walker.

Crew: Director, screenplay: Sonja Maria Kröner. Camera (color): Julia Daschner. Editor: Ulrike Tortora.

With:

Thomas Loibl, Laura Tonke, Ursula Werner, Mavie Hörbiger, Günther Maria Halmer, Christine Schorn. (German dialogue)


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