There was a time when I would pick up a film festival programme and pore over every page, making complicated decisions about how to maximise viewing opportunities to get to as many unlikely-to-be-screened-again movies as possible. Fast forward a few years, bring on parenthood and a whole lot of other responsibilities to juggle, and I now find myself without enough time to properly read the programme, let alone get to the movies. If I get to one film festival movie, it’s usually selected on a whim. Inexplicably finding myself in town with two hours before school pick-up, I might go to whatever is screening next. This can lead to some great viewing opportunities, as well as some dreadful ones.
But when I heard this interview on National Radio, between Kim Hill, Jess Feast (director) and Sister Loyola Galvin (gardener extraordinaire at the Home of Compassion in Island Bay, Wellington) about the New Zealand documentary Gardening with Soul, the decision was made. If I made it to one festival movie, it would be this one. I love gardening – especially vegetable gardening – and this woman (a ninety-year-old nun) sounded like a pretty interesting character.
This morning I almost didn’t go. There were so many other things to do. But then I remembered that:
a. it wasn’t going to be screening again (I thought)
b. I had cancelled something else so as to be able to go, and
c. I am going to a workshop this evening on lifestyle balance and I should at least try to set a good example for myself.
I am so so glad I went. I left feeling on top of the world.
Sister Loyola wanders around the (enormous!) garden, sometimes on crutches, digs with gusto, and trundles off to the beach to collect seaweed for her incredible-looking compost. She dances at her birthday party and puzzles over the crossword – a team effort – all the while reflecting about endless cycles of life and death, grief and hope, loss and faith. The movie spans four seasons in her garden and I didn’t want it to end.
She has a lot to say about childhood and families (her earlier work involved caring for children with disabilities, single mothers, and parents of stillborn babies). She likens children to seedlings; if they don’t get a good start in life, they’re going to struggle to catch up. She also has a poster in her garden shed which says that the person who says something can’t be done, should stop interrupting the person who’s doing it. I like this a lot.
I would love to take my grandparents to this film; they are just a little more senior than Sister Loyola, and are also very well-blessed in terms of their garden and their senses of humour (apparently it will screen again in Dunedin, in mid-September, due to its popularity).
This film made me take a close look at what’s in our own garden and, having been neglected for a long time, it seems that the garden has started taking care of itself!
It also made me want to plant some seeds in preparation for spring. Now if only I can figure out how to keep Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 (aka Jasper and Jemima) from giving the seedlings a less-than-ideal start in life! Kittens and seedlings are a bad mix (actually these kittens and most precious things are a bad mix.)
Do you know, with the kids now being 8 and 10, I can once again pore over a festival programme and choose some to go to. The madness of the little-kid phase is abating and suddenly I have time to be more than just Mum. It’s ace. I’m gonna make a point of going to this one, on the strength of your recommendation!
Hey there ‘fur! You would love it, and you should definitely take your mum. Miri would probably love it too.
I look forward to the day when I have spare time; that is a totally foreign concept right now! Hey thanks for commenting buddy.
You’d be right there Ms Brown because I got a letter from Miri this week telling all the about the movie. Trevor liked the look of the shorts so when it gets a release here we’ll be going too – even though I have a black thumb and a garden of weeds.
On a separate note, I thought of you this week because our neighbours cut down a massive gleditsia which was on the bottom corner of their section. We greatly mourn the loss of such a beautiful enormous tree – which we got to enjoy but not have the burden of it taking up all OUR back garden – and of course the loss of privacy with the big gap in the hedge line. Not sure how they got consent for it but everything is so up in the air here property wise they may not even have needed it – but I remembered your bamboo saga – what people plant on their boundaries makes such a difference to everyone.
Hey I know your family so well! You should get some kind of bulk family discount for this movie. It has “Smith” family written all over it. And remember, a weed is simply a flower growing in the wrong place. Take the leap into permaculture gardening – it will give you a whole new perspective on weeds!
Re the other matter, you have my deepest sympathies. Whenever I think of those ex-neighbours of ours and their chainsaw massacre of our lovely green boundary, I still have most uncharitable thoughts.