Conversations are as much about what goes unsaid as they are about what is said, and it is this principle which underlines and defines Jean Becker's 2007 French feature "Conversations With My Gardener", a film which is more or less what the title describes. It is in the moments where things fall silent, or we feel aspects of the conversation being edited, held back, embargoed, that we truly get a feel for what is actually being communicated.
To this end, a great deal, both verbalised and not, about friendship, love, and all manner of things, is being communicated in this most wonderful film.
The gardener in question is played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin, who replied to an advert placed by Daniel Auteil, that most reliable and versatile of French actors, referred to simply as "Dauber" in this film. They were once friends, back at school, years and years ago, which is established simply in a flashback where they place a firecracker in their teacher's birthday cake. The easiness and ease between them is apparent immediately, laughter coming quickly, the rapport being palpable. The garden is set to work on right away.
This is about as much plot as we are given, until about twenty minutes before the end when things take a shift; what that shift is, I will leave you to discover. Instead of plot, the film is a study as we piece together the characters slowly as the film goes on. The Gardener is a working man, uneducated but not stupid, an ex-railwayman who is fiercely devoted to his wife. The Dauber is much the opposite, a city-man, an artist, who recently moved to his country house after relations broke down with his wife. There isn't much doubt that The Dauber loves his wife as well, but then we also get the impression that The Dauber loves his wife in much the same way that he loves woman, and maybe even Woman. He's that kind of guy.
The central dynamic of the pair rests on the principle that friends are often opposites in a way that often rounds the other out. The Gardener doesn't drink; The Dauber offers wine at almost every social opportunity, and it becomes a motif in the film. The Gardener is openly in love with his wife, and can't help but mention her; The Dauber mentions his wife almost grudgingly, if it comes up. And so on, and so on.
Since the film is literally just about their friendship as it grows and deepens, it is most fortunate that the characters, and dialogue, is crafted with care, and we come to care. Jean Becker, a director I am unfamiliar with, has been directing films, I gather, since the early 1960's. The lightness of touch in this film belies an accumulated wisdom that, to me, is reminiscent of Rohmer at his best. The film is directed with fluidity, grace, and assuredness, knowing when to be still, when to be nimble, when to be sombre, and so on. Mood and tone are expertly handled, almost invisibly, and the gorgeous colour-palette, composed predominantly of greens, is expertly handled, and entirely evocative of gardens, trees, woods. The natural setting is almost the third main character of the piece.
The camera movements, courtesy of cinematographer Jean-Marie Dreujou, are unassuming and expertly placed, gently hopping along no particular plane to reflect the ambling conversations held by the two main characters- and what wonderful conversations they are! Adapted from the novel by Henri Cueco, Jean Cosmos, Jacues Monnet and Becker's script gently cycles through themes such as woman, death, love, politics, illness, old friends and the like, they are conversations we have all had and should all aspire to have. Indeed, The Gardener and The Dauber are two people I would love to have as friends; seeing their friendship develop like the garden being tended to, is delightful.
This is a humanistic, compassionate film, with emphatic undercurrents, that tugs at the heartstrings as well as the mind. It has plenty to recommend it; a slight and sprightly film, resolutely in a minor key, but no less resonant for that.
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